So Far, So Good...

Well, it was quite a day in the operating room yesterday from the sound (and look) of it. Mark's retinal surgeon came out to speak to MeLissa after the procedure was complete yesterday. He looked like he'd been in quite a battle. So far, it looks like he won....again. :)

He said that when he got his first look in Mark's eye, he wasn't sure he'd actually be able to do anything, but he made an attempt and with a lot of patience and perseverance, he reached a point where he was satisfied. The procedure included clearing fibrous material from both sides of Mark's lens (which is no easy task since he didn't want to scratch the lens. He contemplated pretty seriously whehter to actually take the lens out - apparently, it is more of a hinderance than a help, but it was pretty well situated in there with scar tissue and it would have been difficult to accomplish successfully. So, for now, he's leaving it in.

Apparently, one this that was a little disappointing to see was that the fibrous membrane that had formed has become vascularized (i.e., there are blood vessels running through it) and had actually filled the front of Mark's eye with blood (probably due to the drop in eye pressure that occurs with anethesia) so he had to cauterize those after removing the membrane. He also gave Mark a little shot of steroids outside of his eye to hopefully control their growth in the future months.

Once that was taken care of, he moved on to the retina which he had seen was detached once he got in there. He removed the scar tissue without too much trouble in one piece, cut the retina off about 270 degrees around the eye with the laser and then smoothed it out and reattached it. He filled the eye with gas to keep the retina in place and then patched Mark up.

We finally left the hospital at about 7:45 p.m. last night (we arrived at around 9:30 a.m.) and headed home. As usual, we made our "traditional" stop at Jamba juice on the way home. This pretty much served as supper until about midnight when Mark enjoyed some leftover soup and MeLissa had some very tasty toast.

So, now, Mark is back to his favorite (or so it would seem) position - face-down. It will be the same drill as before only with a twist. This time, since Mark has the gas bubble in his eye, we have to make sure that we don't go anywhere with significantly higher (or lower) altitude - this includes, of course, flying. Breaking this "rule" would essentially guarantee blindness in his eye. So, it looks like we'll definitely not be travelling to Hawaii or the Tahoe/Reno area (a recently considered Hawaii substitute - if you can't have Maui, snow is the next best thing, right?) anytime soon.

Please continue to pray for Mark's complete recovery. :)

For those who might be curious, MeLissa passed her day yesterday rather "eventfully." By this we mean, she read the text for her event planning course. She's almost finished - just about 50 pages to go which she should be able to finish up today. We're moving right along here....