Cataracts, really?

Since I was at Mom and Dad's recovering, Mom got me an appointment with her eye doctor, Dr. Talley to see what was going on with my eyes.  I have patchy blurry vision which is much worse at night.

After a long examination Dr. Talley sat down to talk with me.  He explained that oddly enough, I could still achieve 20/20 vision with effort but the bad news was that I had cataracts in both eyes.  He seemed hopeful that because of the surgery and the corrected blood flow, they shouldn't get any worse.  He said they were caused by long term high doses of steroids.  When and if they do worsen, I can have surgery to correct them.  For now, I'll just have to deal with the patchy blurry vision. 

He explained that the "episodes" of blurriness are a separate problem.  He suggested a visit to my primary care doctor to discuss that concern.

I have to admit, I was pretty bummed that afternoon about the diagnosis.  I had learned that one of the side effects of steroids was glaucoma or cataracts.  I guess I was hoping that there was at least a couple of side effect from the steroids I had avoided.  At least it is better to have cataracts that glaucoma I suppose, but it is still a bit of tough blow right now.  I just need to take a breath a let this information soak in.

Welcome to UK

This was the big day to meet my new adult congenital heart specialist at U.K.  I felt kind of weird going to the appointment because it was in the pediatric department.  Dr. Bricker is a pediatric cardiologist who has an interest in adult congenital cardiology.  He and one other doctor work together to run an adult congenital clinic once each month at the Gill Heart building connected to the hospital.  It is such a small area of cardiology that it is hard to find a doctor that practices adult congenital defects full time.  Dr. Bricker was so intrigued by my case that he didn't want to wait until the next clinic to meet me.  That's why he was seeing me in the peds unit so soon after my return from Colorado.  It all worked out nicely for all of us!

Overall the meeting went really well.  He spent most of the time just talking to us and getting to know me and getting to know more about my history and my case.  He talked to Mom a lot and comforted her about the fact that the congenital defects were not caused by anything she did or didn't do during pregnancy.  She was relieved!  He gave me a card with his home and cell number in case anything happened at all.  He said I would need to call him anytime I was sent to the ER for now on because doctors would be so fascinated by my story that it could hinder decisions about the immediate problem. 

He clearly defined my restrictions for recovery which were very limiting.  One thing that was repeated by nearly every doctor was that my chest/sternum would likely take longer to heal because of the amount of time and dosage of steroids I had been taking.  He gave me a general timeline saying that by August I would feel stronger but still get winded when I went back to work.  November would be wonderful - I would feel stronger and better than ever.  And I would be completely recovered from the surgery in one year.  I was prepared to follow directions and let my body do what it needed to do to get well.  I was ready for the good things that were coming my way!

After the appointment, we stopped by the house to pick up Jackson and made the long drive to Mom and Dad's house.  It was time to recover :)