[Anonymous]

#1057069

Jeanne – Thanks for responding. I feel fairly sure of the decision to have orbital surgery but I worry about how much recovery time is involved. You said about a month for you. I have 3 small children and besides my husband, no family close by. I am trying to figure out how long I will be dependent on my husband, meaning how much time should he expect to take off, or maybe I could arrange for a sitter for a
few hours a day.
Also, you didn’t mention the muscle surgery I have been told is a common follow-up to Decomp.Surgery. Were you one of the lucky ones who didn’t have double vision? It would be great if that were the case for me, but I am trying not to expect too much from this. For over 2 years I have been hoping for some kind of a solution to all of this but I slowly learned any improvements take time.
By the way, I hope your results are better than you expect. I had lid retraction surgery done 1 1/2 years ago on the upper lids by a different Eye Dr. This is when we thought the disease was no longer active. The Dr. was wonderful and I think we “rushed” that surgery because I was getting ready to move out of state and she knew how terrribly depressed I was becoming. Anyway, I digress (spelling? -too tired to check), my lid surgery was successful though one eye slowly started to rise again and now my right eye is worse than the left. I guess it is true that it is better to wait but it has been hard. I wish you the best of luck.
Sorry for venting…….Julie T.

[Anonymous]

#1165120

Julie,

The Orbital Decompression surgery they did in Sept. was fairly extensive. My right eye
especially was a real problem. By the way, the surgery was done at Michael Reese in
Chicago.

I was in the hospital for two nights. I was in quite a bit of pain coming home, but took
the Tylenol #3 – and that helped a lot. I needed them for about 3 days after coming home.
Since you have to put a lot of lubricants in your eyes initially, your vision will be
pretty blurry, too. So… the surgery was on a Monday, I was home on Wednesday, and my
husband stayed home with me the rest of the week.

With your 3 small children, you might need some help from a babysitter. I found I needed
to rest my eyes for several hours a day during the first two weeks – and that really
helped a lot. After that, they were sore – and still are to a degree at the sides where
they removed some bone – but BIG improvement came after a month.

I was lucky – and didn’t need the muscle surgery – and didn’t get double vision. So, for
that I am thankful!!

Well, it’s been almost two weeks since my eyelid retraction surgery – and the right eye
looks a lot better. However, the left eyelid is quite a bit lower … so we’ll see what
the doctor says next week. I understand that two surgeries for this in not uncommon.
Does anyone know if this is true???

This is getting kind of long – thanks for listening.

Good luck with your surgery – and let me know how you’re doing!

Jeanne H

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