Eye Update

Z goes back to Excel Eye Center tomorrow morning at 10 to get the bandage contact lenses removed. They've been protecting his eyes to help his corneas heal, but they also make his vision really blurry. It'll probably take another week for everything to be completely healed up, then we can start getting him in his new prescription glasses etc. He might even be able to handle wearing contacts now that he has the plugs in his tear ducts. YAY!

One Year Ago

We got to meet our Kaiden boy one year ago, right about at this point in the morning. I'm so glad that I have him in my life.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAIDEN!

K's first birthday

As Kaiden turns one tomorrow, I thought I'd list all of the amazing things that he's learned how to do this year, things that all of us adults take for granted.

• Smile
• Respond to sounds/voices etc
• Vocalize
• Lift head and keep it steady
• Roll Over
• Reach and grab for an object
• Laugh
• Bring hands together
• Follow an object
• Sit
• Crawl
• Stand
• Eat solid food
• Feed himself
• Look for a dropped object
• Blow raspberries
• Walk

It's been a whirlwind of a year. He has by no means been an easy baby, with reflux, gas issues, and a completely crazy personality, but we love him. He's adorable and makes us laugh all the time. The kid really is funny, loving, sweet, creative, and tough.

The day after

Everything went well with the procedure yesterday. Z was really uncomfortable through most of it, bad chair to sit in for 1 1/2 hours, but the procedure itself went exactly as they wanted it to. We got him on some percocet and muscle relaxers and he pretty well passed out for the rest of day day. I think that Noah was pretty concerned about his daddy, cuz he ended up in our bed several times last night wanting to snuggle with daddy.

This morning we had a follow up appointment and they said that things are looking great and going exactly as they planned. The bandage contact is the main thing causing physical discomfort at this point, though he is still really sensitive to light and things are still pretty blurry while his cornea finishes healing and smoothing out. We'll go in on Monday to get the contact removed.

I ended up finding this website about the procedure, if you're curious about what they did to him.

keratoconusinserts.com

Keratoconus

Just thought I'd catch everyone up on what's going on with Zander's eyes. They've been bugging him for a long time, we knew he had an astigmatism and they're perpetually dry, but his prescription changed YET AGAIN, so he went to the Dr.'s down at Excel Eye Center in Provo. Really good eye care center, and his sister works there. Double bonus. They were more thorough than the other dr.'s that he's been to, and discovered that he has keratoconus, which means that his cornea's (the clear, outer lining of the eye) are really weak, and could potentially rupture.

So today he's going to go get his tear ducts plugged, to help his chronic dry eye problems, and tomorrow he is going in for a procedure new to the US called corneal crosslinking. They'll remove the outermost layer of his cornea, then apply a series of riblofavin drops to his eyes, followed by some fairly intensive UV light stuff. This will rebuild his cornea so that it is strong and normal. He'll have to wear a bandage contact lens for a couple of days, and he'll be sensitive to light for a while, but this should fix most of his eye problems. He'll still have the estigmatism, since that's a problem with his lens, but this could very well fix most of his vision problems, and he may not need glasses after this.

Zoorasic Park

Hogle Zoo is doing this really cool Zoorasic Park thing right now. Throughout the zoo are various dinosaurs. They're animated, and they make noise and everything. Most of them are scaled down a little bit, but the T-Rex is full sized, and honestly, a little bit terrifying. It was a fun little addition to zoo!

We have new neighbors!

Our new neighbors moved in some time late Thursday. Thankfully they're on the other side of the complex from us, and they're being nice and just minding their own business. The extermination guys came and freaked out a little bit and said they couldn't handle that large of a swarm until Monday. So the HOA people found some guys to safely transport them away for us instead. They should be gone some time later today.