One Brick at a Time

So, we headed out to the hospital with Lana at about 10.40, as we were told to be on the ward for 11.00. As we neared the hospital we got a call from the ward nurse to say we wouldn’t be able to see the opthalmologist until 1.30, so no need to come in until 1.00. Rather that turn around we took Lana to a farm shop, where we bought some fruit and veg and where Lana was able to give some love to the 1-week old lambs. Bless.

When we got to the hospital Lana had her pulse and blood oxygen things done, and we headed down to the eye clinic. Turns out the eye doctors were all in a meeting until 2.00, but the nurse came and apologised, informed us of the reason for the delay, and exactly when we’d be seen. Great service.

Lana was well past her normal daytime sleep time by this point, and was exhausted, but she soldiered on, and the specialist was fantastic with her, having treated children of this age many times before, undoubtedly.

The exam took about 10 minutes, after which time we were told that they were pretty certain that Lana’s problem was caused by the muscles in her eye, which is what we initially thought (and which is great news). The better news is that because it is very intermittent she won’t need to don a pirate eye patch, but she’ll need to keep coming back to have her progress monitored. It’s looking likely that she’ll need an eye operation at some point, but by this stage and eye operation looks like great news!

After seeing two eye doctors we had to head back up to paediatrics, where the doctor informed us that he’ll need to see Lana again on Tuesday. Although the eye doctors are sure it’s a problem with her eye, the paediatrician needs to rule out the more serious possibility that it’s a problem with pressure in her brain, such as GBS or <insert difficult-to-spell condition here>. It’s entirely possible that she’ll need to have an MRI (which will mean a general anaesthetic) but we’ll all decide that together on Tuesday, and no-one believes it’s the brain thing – the scan will be simply to cross off an item on the list that was initially discussed.

After some initially poor communication when we took Lana in last night (we didn’t know why we were there, or what was involved for quite some time), everything else went very smoothly, and the staff at the two departments at York General Hospital were fantastic.

Finally, thanks to everyone on Twitter and text who supported us with good wishes over the last 24 hours – it really has helped.