Anniversary of Eye Surgery

It was one year ago today that Clay had his corneal transplant and lens replacement. Clay recently had a follow-up appointment with his surgeon and I'm happy to report that all is going well.

In looking back to where he was a year ago, I know Clay is happy he got the surgery. One year later his sight is a little better than it was with glasses before, and much better than it was without glasses. He still has refractions (star filtering and seeing some double images) which are at their worst at night. But we are hoping that with time those things will improve.

Most of all, Clay now has a healthy cornea and hopefully the deterioration he was having in his sight will slow or stop entirely. Also, with the new cornea the doctors are able to more easily see Clay's retina which will make it easier to diagnose any further problems.

The doctor is leaving the stitches in to eventually dissolve unless there is a reason to remove them. A reason to remove stitches might be that in the dissolving process a stitch breaks and the fragment is sticking up causing problems. If the stitches do not have to be removed they can stay in there and could take between 2 and 4 years to dissolve. This is quite a bit longer process than Clay was expecting.

Clay is still taking an antirejection drug (an eyedrop) for the transplant along with all his glaucoma drops, but they are weaning his dose so that hopefully he can stop taking it in a few months.

The eyesight has been pretty stable for months now, so we are expecting any further changes to be minimal. This will probably be the last post on the eyesight updates unless something changes. Thanks to everyone who has wished Clay well in this.