January 19, 2018 "Optic nerve edema #1"

January 12, 2018 Opthamologist: Rayden was absolutely amazing at this eye appointment! He sat in the examining chair all by himself, named all the pictures he saw, and allowed the doctor to look deep into his eyes. He could see very well using both eyes but when they covered his good eye he couldn't see the small pictures. This had me concerned but Dr. Grace said it wasn't bad enough to warrant glasses.

She said his inferior oblique muscle is overacting which is why his eye gets buried and weird when he looks to the side. He is not using his eyes together well. She wants to look at surgery later on this year for the eye misalignment. She wants us to patch his eye four hours a day now to try and correct the unequal vision. She wants his left eye vision to come down more and meet the right eye. She stated that eye muscle surgery is more successful if the vision is equal in both eyes. Surgery would make the eye stay in line better so that it could get better visual input.
As if that wasn't bad enough...she noticed that his nerves looked swollen. She didn't think they were excessively swollen but she didn't want us to leave her office without talking to the Neurosurgeon. She looked three different times and was positive that his optic nerves were swollen, not horrible, but definitely there. Within two minutes of her paging Melody, she called right back. Seeing as how there were no other symptoms of shunt failure, Melody, scheduled an MRI and shunt series for next week.

January 19, 2018 Neurosurgery: Rayden was so brave getting his X-ray shunt series and MRI. The MRI technician crawled in the tunnel with him so he wouldn't be so scared. Although he did cry just a little bit he defiantly showed that he is growing up.

Dr. Elton didn't see any area of pressure on the back of his eyes. There was no increased inter-cranial pressure or tube blockage. He said the scans looked exactly the same as last year. Therefore he didn't want to change the shunt valve setting or do anything drastic. His recommendation is to be on 'shunt watch', meaning he MAY start to show signs of shunt malfunction soon. (throwing up, headache, lethargic, etc.) If this happens then Dr. Elton may change the valve setting. He wants us to follow up with Dr. Grace in the next three weeks because he fears the problem may lie with his eyes not his shunt. Now this does not give me any real answers but I am relieved that his shunt seems to be functioning properly.