Interesting Opthomologist appointment, still no pathology

Today was interesting. For one, Bryan's never has his eyes dialated. He looked creepy with those huge pupils and tiny blue slivers of an iris! He kept getting right in my face and acting goofy to freak me out. I love his sense of humor.

Today's opthomologist appointment was to see how his vision was affected from the surgery. Dr. Kirby tested his eyes and said he actually has 20/20 vision but because of his age, will need reading glasses soon (Ha Ha!). She did a field test on his peripherial vision. She made him look through a machine and every time he saw a flash of light he had to press a button indicating that he saw the light. There was a graph-like picture that Dr. Kirby showed us when going over his results. I'll try to explain in how she showed us on paper:

If you draw a circle, that represents his eye. Draw a line down the middle dividing it into two equal halves. Color the left side of the circle black. That's what both of Bryan's eyes mapped out when showing what his left peripherial vision can see. Nothing. On a normal person who has perfect vision, the entire circle is white. She showed us an example of someone that has some vision loss in the bottom section that looked like a small grey smudge. Bryan's entire left peripherial on his right and left eye is totally gone. It's because when Dr. Desaloms removed the tumor there were two nerves that were "touched" for lack of a better word. We don't know if they were damaged or just irritated. One comes from the back of his left eye and crosses through the middle of his skull and goes to the back right side. The other nerve comes from the outside of his right eye and goes straight back to the back right side of this skull. These two nerves control the left peripherial. The strange thing is that his eyes aren't affected, it's his brain that doesn't see the peripherial. That's why the doctors don't want him to drive because he doesn't realize what he can't see because it's not his eyes that aren't seeing it, it's his brain, and he would just rip off everyone's side mirrors if we put him behind the wheel of a vehicle.

Bryan asked Dr. Kirby what are the chances of his peripherial vision coming back? She said she has no idea. She said that it's basically a flip of the coin. She spoke with Dr. Desaloms after Bryan's surgery, and he apparently informed her that he had to 'bump around quite a bit to get all of the tumor that was larger than he expected', and that only time would tell the damage. She said that Bryan will have to exercise extreme patience for this recovery. She gave us an example that her father-in-law suffered a stroke which completely took away his speech, but after one year of therapy he regained 90% of his speech. The same thing will likely happen with Bryan's vision.

There is no therapy for Bryan right now, just rest so the nerves can repair themselves, which only repair 1mm per day. She told Bryan that he is NOT allowed to drive whatsoever for at least three months. That's when he will go back for another appointment on June 29th for a re-evaluation.

This was a bit of a blow to him, knowing that he is unable to drive for three months, but he is very thankful that he can do everything else. The drugs are wearing off since he's off Hydrocodone and Dexamathasone, which is starting to cause some minor headaches, but this was expected. He is taking Tylenol to reduce that pain, but the Keppra (anti-seizure medicine) still have some crappy side effects that make him feel woozy, disoriented, irritated, etc. His last dose of that junk will be April 16th, so we're hoping for a big improvement around that date.

Bryan continues to stay very prayerful, faithful, and focused on following God's plan. He is so positive! He has touched so many lives with this attitude, it's amazing. This is a great thing to witness, seeing all of these people just come out of the woodworks to visit with Bryan and hear what he has to say. So cool!

Pray for patience and recovery.

Oh, by the way, I talked to someone at Dr. Desaloms' office today and she said that the pathology is in Missouri right now and that sometimes when it is sent out of state, it can take up to four weeks! I, very nicely, said, "Oh, okay, thank you. In the future, instead of telling patients it will take two weeks to find out if they have cancer or not and after that two weeks then informing them that they have longer to wait, start off by telling them that it will be at least a month, that way they won't have to stress over pending results too early." She understood and sincerely apologized.

It's almost 11:30 PM and Bryan's been having a hard time sleeping, as I mentioned earlier. He's taken something tonight that might help him sleep, although it's been almost two hours and he's not really asleep yet.

Pray for good rest.

Goodnight,
Gayla
3/25/10
11:30 PM