Made It In One Piece

Well, it's over. The surgery for Sol that is. All those years, all that worrying and it feels like strange that its finally done. Sol did great, she's a little trooper. We arrived at 8 am and she was anaesthetised by 9am. The surgery lasted 90 minutes and it took Sol another hour to come round. There wasn't a single tear, no complaining, the medical staff all commented on how she's been the best behaved child they have operated on in a long time. :D

 

Her eye looks surprisingly good, the white is red and sore looking but there isn't the bruising that I was expecting. To be honest I am not sure what I expected, whatever it just went really smoothly. The orthoptic person said they are very happy with the results.

 

At the weekend, prior to Sol's surgery we took a little trip into Bangor to the marina, and along to the splash park. Hardly weather for splashing but the children had fun all the same. It was nice to do something fun before Sol was in hospital, not knowing how long Sol would be laid up for instigated it too.

 

 

Oh, and totally off topic ...

my apple trees have gorgeous blossoms right now.

 

 

 

 

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Waves And Eyes On Me

Today was busy! Mags had an English exam to go sit in the city. We had to leave around 7:30am in order to beat the morning rush. I had been wondering the last few days what I would do with the other children while we hung around waiting for the exam to be over. There wasn't enough time to drive home then go back up again, and there's only so much time you can kill with three youngsters in tow. I decided to take them swimming. The pool I chose for them had a wave machine and it's a lot of fun. We spent 90 minutes in the water, I swear we were all wrinkly when we got out. This was the first time they had experienced the wave machine and the children are now all very eager to go back again as soon as possible.

 

Apart from the fun stuff I've been having a few thoughtful moments this week. Sol has surgery next week to straighten her eyes. It's been a long road. Sol has been left with a blind spot in the centre of her left eye and some other difficulties with her vision. So I was thinking, wondering if I was doing the right thing by permitting this surgery to go ahead. What if it goes wrong? What if her eyes turn out wards after the surgery, and that is one of the main risks that has meant it's taken so long to make the decisions to operate. All this while I am a member of a forum which discusses such issues. The adults who had surgery often need further surgery, this scares me. But the biggest emotional tug of all are those who never had surgery, those people whose parents either didn't push for it, or couldn't afford it, or were simply too frightened like me ... those people are the ones who have the regrets. I can't imagine spending years hiding your eyes by dipping your head low or wearing your hair across your face - I do not want that for my daughter.

And as if someone spoke to me while I was having these thoughts I came across these photos of my little girl, these photos are the deal breaker for me. We have to try, at least give it our best shot. What do you think?

 

 

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Nose No Trouble

This has been an eventful week indeed!

Our poor wee puppy got bitten by another dog. The other dog was a Blue Staffordshire and decided to take a dislike to Olivia while I had her out for a walk. The other dog bit Olivia and left a nasty wound on her nose.

She bled profusely and for a few minutes it was really hard to stem the bleeding. The children were crying and the owner of the other dog was absolutely mortified that this had happened. We had to take Olivia to the vet and sadly they were unable to do any plastic surgery as the flesh had been torn away. The vet gave my pup antibiotics and an anti inflammatory pain medicine to assist the healing process. It could have been a lot worse, I know we are lucky. It was also an awkward situation, however I am thankfull that the lady was happy to pay the vet bill, otherwise things would have been really different to deal with.

A few days on and my puppy's nose wound has dried up a bit and the swelling subsided. If anything it looks worse but it is healing well despite that. Olivia will always have the fleshy curly part of her nostril missing, I guess that's going to be her bravery story.

 

 

 

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Continental Style

The continental market came to town. It was a lovely sunny day today so we decided to go and check it out. I only took Toni, Seb and Sol with me, we left the pup at home with my oldest child who is currently studying like a mad man for his exams. When we arrived in town and got out the car I just took one look at Sol. Well, it was funny but not funny at the same time ... Sol was wearing a wrinkly old coat that I save for the garden for her. I made her take it off and go put it in the car, but of course then she was cold. We ended up going to the clothes store in search of something warm for her to wear. I started rummaging through the sale rails and found a cute little coat for her for only £7, so the pain was lessened.

We spent the next couple of hours just wandering about then I took the kids for lunch at the KFC. I cheated and bought them snack boxes instead of kids meals, they didn't notice lucky for me.

 

Sol showing off her new jacket on the beach this afternoon.

 

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Cuteness Overload

 

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Sun, Sand, And The Wetlands.

What a busy week it has been for me, for us all really. Last weekend the weather was pretty good and we spent a few days on the beach. Not sunbathing beachy stuff, but dog walking and playing in the sand weather. The puppy loves the beach too which is just as we'll considering we live a two minute walk from the sand.

Sadly on the way back from the beach last Monday Sol had a bit of an accident. We were almost home, maybe 30 yards from the house when she walked into a wall and hit her mouth. She badly broke one of her front teeth and hurt her mouth considerably that she couldn't stop crying for quite some time. Lucky for us the emergency dentist was on hand and we were able to get seen within about half an hour of the accident happening. They repaired Sol's tooth with white resin like material and she went back the following day for x-rays. It is left with this repair on it, which actually looks pretty good, and we have to watch for discolouration incase the tooth dies. Sol is fine about it now, but I am still a bit upset at the damage.

Yesterday we went to the wetlands, we've been before and it's not really advanced much since it was created three or four years ago. Still the wildlife must like it as we saw a few birds and came across a frog. The frog was just sitting in the water, we picked it up but didn't realise it was spawning till we got it out the water. Amazing though.

You will see in the photos that Sol is wearing a patch on her eye. The patching has been ongoing due to various eye problems that she has had since birth. She patches three hours a day now and it's an essential part of her treatment even though it isn't nice to look at. Sol is having surgery at the end of the month to help the cosmesis of her eyes, is going to be milestone for her and probably a traumatic time for me. It's taken many many years to get to this stage in her treatment.

 

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