Laura’s Medical Journey

2nd op update… November 21, 2010

Well, it’s been over a week now since the 2nd op and its certainly been harder to get used to my eyes this time round. What with the left one had been very swollen and half closed half the time and my right one wide open! My left eyelid is just starting to open up a bit now but there is still swelling it so it will take a week or 2 to open up a bit more hopefully as im not keen on having another adjustment even if they are simpler than the original op but it just means another trip to Newcastle which is annoying! Ive sent a photo to my surgeon on Friday to let him know how it is getting on but he has not got back to me yet.The right one is feeling better than the left but now and again it feels strained which is a pain!
Every night so far it has been a bit hard to sleep as it feels weird to close my left eye. Sometimes when i closed it, as ive been trying to keep it open most of the day, when i keep it shut, it sort of opens back up again!! I think its just about managed to stop doing that now!
What im hating is the constant watering of my eyes each morning! Im sick of it! it really makes my eyes sore and i have to scrunch them for a bit it takes a bit of time to get them to stop watering. im hoping it will stop soon! im happy with how my right eye looks like now and it’s looking promising for my left! (hope i havent iinxed it!) but it will take another 2 weeks or nore before it settles down all togerher!
Today i had one hell of a headache due to my tiredness as ive not been sleeping very well because the watering and the way ive had to be keeping my eyes open so ive been taking paracetamol for that but im trying not to over do it! i dont take it unless i need it!
Apart from all that looking forward to christmas! 😀

more swelling… November 14, 2010

Today after a good nights sleep in my own bed and some painkillers, i woke up to more of a black eye and swellling! its not painful unless u touch it.

2nd eyebrow suspension part 2,,, November 14, 2010

13th november,  i didnt have a good night sleep so i spent most of the night watching TV or walking about to keep my muscles moving. I had JUST drifted off about 6am but 10 mins later, the nurse woke me up to do my blood pressure!!! ohh i woke up with a headache so i had some paracetamol.

he told us the swelling would get worse as time goes on before it goes down and he couldnt determine what it would the eye would be like til it had gone down. After that, we were free to go home and i could recover.

2nd eyebrow suspension part 1… November 14, 2010

Off we go again! on 11th november we travelled up Newcastle yet again for my 2nd eyebrow suspension on the left eyelid  and the adustment on my right eyelid. We went to the hosptial first to have a catch up as usual with the mito doc! She did the usual tests and weighed me. i was pleased to know my weight had gone up to just over 8st woop! She also told me about the facebook group they were thinking of doing for mito patients and asked if id like to have a part in it along with another mito patient so we could raise more awareness of mitochondrial condiitons or just simply to help the ones that have the conditons so they can confer with people who have the same problems. i jumped at the chance as its something to do at home and keep busy with She also suggested some physio to help me with my moving about more. She told me she would let me know later in time.

on the 12th, we awoke at our Premier inn hotel at 7am!! as me and my parents had to be at the hospital for 8 30am. i had a better nights sleep than lhe last time i was at newcastle. We made our way to the hospital and went on to ward 20 where we were in a new part of the building. i was impressed and the nurses were lovely.
i was given my hopsital ID bracelet and medical notes taken, then the nurse put some numbing cream all over my top forehead for the locals. (i really dont like feeling locals!) then it was a waiting game!

When i was in the process of having the operation, the doc had a complication with the left eyelid and where the stye had used to be, it had left some scarring so he had to work around that but in the same time some of the things that were done were horrendous!! call me a baby but it felt like he was squeezing my eyeball again!! but i did it and got through it! it took longer than normal. he then moved on to my right eye for the adjustment which wasnt as bad as what i just went through!!

2 weeks on from brow op… October 23, 2010

My eyebrow op has gone well, any bruisnig or swelling i had  went down quite quickly which I was surprised with! My eye seems more open that my other but I still think it could be more open and just over the pupil but my doc can adjust that by 1mm if needs be in the next operation in November. Im quite pleased with it. I still have a stitch in my head but the ones on the eyelid have dissolved.  I have had no double vision since! I had a bit of trying to look at things more closely after the first few days but that has now settled. i was surprised at how I didnt really have much pain and any pain i had was helped by paracetamol.  My eyebrow was frozen for about a week and a half so my eyebrow woudlnt move if i tried and it was lower that my other one but its all gone back to normal now.

The stye eye that was drained is still a little bruised but i can tell the difference between how open my other eye is now.  im very pleased with it and hope the other op in november goes well too!

Removing of a stye… October 18, 2010

I woke this monring dreading this! Id been up most of the night what with my feed going all over my bloody bed again! Mum called today for tubes that have no medicene port and just a port where i connect to my feed because the feed going all over my bed has  happened too many times before!  and i cant sleep in it! So from what the nutritian centre said that they should be able to send some one port tubes! WOO HOO! no more feed over my bed!
Back to my stye! i got up at 8am having been awake most of the night sleeping on a towel, and went off to the local hospital to have the stye drained. The stye has to be drained because with the next upcoming brow suspension op, i need to be rid of it by then. If i still had the stye, the doc wouldnt do the operation because f risk of infection so it would have been a wasted journey!
So we told the nurse this stye needs to come out ASAP! she said there was a waiting list for it though AFTER the op which was no good!!!  Then a senior nurse came in and said “I can do now it uf want” we took her up on it because we wanted it out as early as poss so it can heal.

She sat e down in a dentist like chair and put a local in my eyelid which stung and pretty much made my eyelid trickle with blood… she then put some kinda clamp on my eyelid to turn it inside out which was painfully uncomfortable!!! it felt like it was squeezing my eyeball!! she drained the cyst (stye) out and put a bandage on it. after a check up on it after 5 mins and a new bandage to take off after 2 hrs,  i was free to go home. By the time i got home and 2 hrs later, i took the bandage off and it was sooooo bruised and swollen it;s unbeleivable! i couldnt even open it for some time! Hopefully it will heal in time for the opteration  in November. 🙂  For now i have to put antibiotic drops in for 4 days and see how it goes! Wish me luck!

Bruising from brow suspension… October 11, 2010

11th oct-  my eyelid has swelled up a bit and theres a bit of bruising. it feels a bit stiff to blink but its ok and no pain.
My parents say they can see a difference between my right aye and my left eye.

The day after the brow suspension.. October 11, 2010

9th oct– My parents arrived just in time for the unveiling of my eyelid. The doc came about 10am and told us what to expect. he took off the patch and i had 3 stiches on my eyelid 2 on my eyebrow and one on my forehead.  The doc said it looked good and that he was confident. He told us it would take a few days for the local to wear off and maybe a few weeks to see the final outcome. he also told us that they were disolvable stiches so i didnt have to have them taken out which i was pleased about because they were in a deleicate place.

it felt a bit weird and a bit sore so i took some parecetamol and chilled out for a bit while the nurse came to clean up my face a bit because of the icky theatre antiseptic. She then left to get our discharge papers and give us some drops to put in my eye for a week.

10th oct-  2nd pic – my eye was looking better but the doc said the swelling would come over the next few days. My eyebrow is still low from the local.

1st brow suspension op… October 11, 2010

once we were there, we had to go to ward 21, but we had to go to this eye outpatients ward first and get checked in and given my hosptial band as i was also staying the night as we had travelled 3hrs to get there and the doc had to check my eye the next day. They also asked the usual hospital Questions like a pre op thing. 

The nurse plopped an arrow on my right eye with an  arrow to make sure they have the right eye and then because i was worried about feling the locals, they stuck some numbing cream on me  It seemed like we were there for hours before I was finaly called for my op.

Replacement ci… September 22, 2010

When i went to the ci centre a month ago, they said they were going to send me a replacement of my cochlear implant processer the 3g esprit. I wasn’t too keen on this but I had my old one for 10 yrs and i really need to change it! Im never good with change espeically in my hearing! Ive even had the same map on for the last 10 years, maybe less!
Ive got on great with the map i have at the moment SO if it aint broke dont fix it!  The only things ive had to change in the last 10 years are my coil and batteries which isnt bad really! They didnt have any silver ones when I went to the ci centre so they said they would send it in the post when they get some in!
So it came last Thursday! and i hated it! lol The first couple of days with it were LOUD and echey although i could still hear everything well. i went down to volume 2 at one point  and started experiementing with the switches on the bottom but no avail then yesterday i changed something at the bottom of my new 3g processor and its sort of clicked to how it was! I dont know if its due to something i’ve done on my processor or my brain has just simply got used to it already! The only problem i have with the new processor now is that the hook wire keeps clicking out at the top probably because its a new processor but im hoping it will stay in on its own at some point!  Im gona keep the old processor for a couple more days then send it back to the ci centre in their special envelope!