It's Baaaaaack!

Remember this? Yup, it was pretty gross. The vision in Travis' eye mostly returned to normal, but he's sensitive to light in that eye and has a hard time driving at night. Lately, his eye has really been bothering him. It looked like he had pinkeye, but two rounds of medication didn't help. Finally, his opthamalogist referred him to a local retina specialist. Apparently the band that was placed to hold his retinal repair in place five years ago is being rejected by Trav's body. As in, his eye is pushing the band out! Ewww! This was causing all the irritation and drainage from his eye the last few weeks. It was to the point that the band had started splitting some of the tissue around his eye. Yuck. So taking out the band was pretty much inevitable at this point. If it continued, not only would his eye keep pushing the band out, but he was at risk of infection.

The retina guy saw Travis on Friday and got him into surgery on his next hospital day, which was today. Although the office is in Fredericksburg, the outpatient surgery was at Inova Fair Oaks in Fairfax. Our neighbor came over at 6:30 this morning to get the kids ready for school for us and we hit the road. The 2 hr drive went better than expected and the hospital was really organized and on schedule. Travis was sedated and given local anesthetic while they cut a slit next to his eyelid and pulled out the band, finishing with a few stitches. The whole procedure only took 30 minutes and he was well enough to enjoy some Cafe Rio on the way home.

Excited about surgery?

A big thank-you to our local friends who watched the kiddoes and will be bringing us dinner tonight. Hayden and Cosette had a great time playing with their friends all day. We're glad the procedure went well and Travis will be heading back to work (hopefully) on Monday. It's awesome to have access to such wonderful health care and great insurance to cover our expenses. Mostly we're grateful for such a minor problem that could be easily fixed. And here are some pics of our hospital date:

My favorite part: the temporary tattoo over the afflicted eye. Haha!

Post op and feeling sleepy.

As soon as we got home, Hayden went to find his eye patch so he could match Dad!

Hopefully this is the last we'll deal with the eye! The retina repair still looks good and Travis is looking forward to less irritation and better vision once he's fully healed.