Surgery be being Successful

Matthew's surgery went very well. The doctor was very pleased with what he saw and is optimistic about the outlook for the eye. He said the retina looked flat and that what he thought was a hole actually turned out to be a hole, but it appeared to have resolved on its own by "an intervention other than himself". He had previously said that a hole was devastating and would eventually grow to cover virutually the entire back of his eye. It is virtually unheard of that a hole would repair itself. The doctor removed the lens and the buckle from his right eye during the roughly two hour surgery. Removing the buckle caused some increased tension in his eye. This additional tension could cause the retina to pull away from the back of the eye, so he's going to keep a close watch on it. Removing the lens allows matthew to have an unobstructed view now (since the lens had a cataract in it), but it also means he can't focus that eye. We'll be visiting an optometrist with him pretty soon where we'll likely be given a prescription for contacts. It's hard enough getting eye drops in his eyes, I can't imagine how hard it will be to get a contact in there.

If everything goes well, Matthew will have to wear a contact for a while, but will have a synthetic lens put in sometime in the next few years.