You go in expecting one thing....and end up with something totally different.

Ever since Sofia was little (you know....smaller than she is now!) we've noticed her eyes had a tendency to water. We always brought it up during pediatrician visits and they always told us it could be a blocked tear duct and she should grow out of it by the time she's two. Fast forward to two and the watering is still present. It didn't hurt her - it was probably not even noticed by her - but this time when we brought up to the pediatrician, she decided to refer us to a specialist.

We had our visit with the specialist today. I met D and the girls at the offices which are part of the hospital system. I learned a long time ago that doing research on my own regarding medical situations totally freaks me out so I stay away from the Internet. So today we go in with the girls for our visit (Olivia just came along for the ride....and the toys) expecting some testing and probably walking away with some drops or instructions on how to treat said blocked tear ducts. While we're sitting there, the technician was doing her assessment (by the way.....why is it they ask you to fill out mountains of paperwork in advance....you spend an hour doing so....only to be walked through the same questions during the assessment process?) -- so we're doing the assessment and she goes "So let's talk about the procedures we're going to do. We're going to put her to sleep and wahhh wah wahhh wah wah wahh" (think the teacher on Charlie Brown cartoons). As soon as we heard put her to sleep we didn't hear a single thing after that.

D and I were looking at eachother like "Did she just say they were putting her to sleep?" "I'm pretty sure they said they were putting her to sleep." "Are you getting the rest of what she's saying because I'm still stuck on the putting her to sleep part." I'm not kidding. We said all of that. With our looks.

So yes. At the end of the month, they're going to do a couple of procedures where they will begin by putting her to sleep. They're going to insert a very small rod into the tear duct in each eye to remove any blockage and then they're going to use a small balloon catheter and will inflate the duct a few times to make sure it's not too narrow. They tell us these procedures resolve the issue 90% of the time and with the remaining 10% they have to go back in and insert silicone "tubes" which serve to keep the ducts open.

When I was explaining the procedures to my mom, I kept telling her they were going to stick a rod in her eye. She reminded me that this "rod" was so tiny it was probably barely visible. I assured her I knew that but a) I couldn't think of another word to describe what they were using; and b) they were explaining the procedure on a diagram showing an eye and the related ducts....and since the eye on the diagram was as big as my fist, it looked like they were using something the size of a knitting needle. And no....it's not going in her eye.....but way too close for my liking!

So we asked all the questions we could think of after the surprise information, including "what if we choose to not do this procedure". Gotta have all the options, right? We decided it was best for Sofia to proceed. They'll put her to sleep and the procedure takes about 15 mins or so (per eye? both eyes? that I don't know). They won't have to put a tube down her throat and I don't think there are any IVs -- they're using gas to put her to sleep since the procedure is short enough they don't have to use more invasive anesthesia. Ugh. It makes my stomach hurt, but we know it's something we need to take care of.

As part of the exam today, they dilated Sofia's eyes. She was not happy with the spray they had to put in her eyes, but she recovered as soon as the technician left the room. Thank goodness for interesting toys!! I've always been interested in how they examine the eyes of young children. We didn't have a full eye exam as Sofia doesn't have vision problems, but we got to see a little. Had we needed to have a more thorough evaluation, we would have had to take Olivia out of the room - she was naming all the objects that came up on the screen so Sofia was able to cheat!!!

Since they dilated her eyes, they gave Sofia (and Olivia, too! Can't do for one without the other!) some glasses to wear outside. The light outside must have really bothered her because she wore the glasses for most of the way home!
So September 30th......here we come. Ugh!