Ada had surgery to remove her cataract when she was two weeks old. Since then, she has worn a contact lens and we do daily patch therapy (5-6 hours) to help her use the weaker eye. She has been an amazingly patient child with all of it and we have been really lucky. We were finally able to see a new doctor in Phoenix a few months ago who decided that another surgery was necessary to clean out some tissue that was growing in her lens capsule and was blocking some of her vision. After a failed attempt to have it done a month ago (Ada got a fever the morning of the scheduled surgery), everything went as planned last week and along with getting the tissue cleared out, the surgeon was able to implant a lens into her eye. This means that, for the time being, Ada doesn't have to wear a contact lens. It was a difficult decision because some experts still recommend waiting until the child is a lot older if possible, but we felt that it would be easier for everyone if no one was worrying about losing contacts or hurting her eye with a contact in and the surgeon was confident that it would be a good thing for her. Ada was a champ through all of it (and still is with several drops daily and resuming the patch therapy). We really couldn't have gotten any luckier with a child who is emotionally and physically strong enough to remain cheerful- even when her eye is getting poked and prodded all the time. She almost always has a smile on her face, even when she's in the pre-op room waiting for surgery!
And she had to wear this huge colander-looking metal shield over her eye for a week after, but she never complained (except when we were untaping it from her face to apply drops).
Ada has recovered, and aside from having to wear sunglasses a majority of the time to protect her eye in the rare chance that she would run into something that could injure it, she is back to her old shenanigans. And we could just be imagining it, but her vision seems to be better than it was before!
