Unblocking the tear ducts

Edie had her eye surgery today to clear the blocked tear duct. She was a pretty good patient, and it all went pretty smoothly. We had a private little pre-op area, and since it was such a short procedure they let John and I stay there the whole time rather than going back to the waiting room, so that was nice.

They gave her some oral "loopy juice" to calm her before taking her back to surgery. The picture shown above is her waving hello to the camera shortly after taking the loopy juice. She did get a little upset when the anesthesiologist took her away, so I don't think it had totally set in when they first took her back.

Once back in surgery, they gave her gas to knock her out and then IV anesthesia. She was gone quite a bit longer than we expected (about an hour and a half), but Dr. Ikram said the procedure went very well. She said her little tear holes, i can't remember the medical term, were really small and that's what was causing the tear ducts to block. She probed and cleared the ducts, and successfully flushed them afterwards so she expects everything to be fine now.

Edie did pretty well post-op, but had the usual post-anesthesia associated drowsiness and grumpiness. We got her home and she had a few graham crackers and then took a 4 hour nap. She seems to be doing well, with no post-op fever and just a little bit of a bloody nose. The drowsiness and grumpiness seems to be hanging on, but that is normal. After she got up from her nap, and had a snack she did show signs of getting back to her usual self as she demanded to have a bow put in her hair!

I'm glad to have that over with, and thankful it was a successful procedure and overall easy experience. The Kosair staff was wonderful, and made everything pretty easy on us. After our experience at University Hospital with John's surgeries, I have come to not really expect much from hospital staff as far as communication. Everything was easy though, check in and registration, pre-op, check out and they kept us well informed with minimal waiting throughout the whole process. They have really streamlined the whole process at Kosair and all the nurses, techs, and doctors were really accessible and informative and right on time so that made all the difference!