Stylin' and profilin'

Jack Henry had a consult today with Dr. Wittenberg as referred by Dr. Hittner. Dr. Hittner is the foremost expert in pediatric opthamology in North America and it's a luxury to have access to her talents through the Memorial Hermann NICU as she is also a professor with the UT-Houston med school. Dr. Wittenberg is an expert in infectious ocology and other "rare" things, which you will read in a moment to understand why we were referred to her.

Dr. Hittner performed her post-NICU discharge on Monday as she is following a hemorrage in his left eye near the macula.

Originally during Dr. Hittner's initial exam when JH was one month old, she saw a slight tear (hemorrage) in the upper part of the left eye that looked like it was in the process of resolving itself as the blood was dry in the area. In her first follow-up when JH was two months old, Dr. Hittner observed that the original hemorrage was resolved, but a new one (or one that may have been previously obscured by the original hemorrage) appeared close to the macula. While these hemorrages are expected to self-resolve by the tear site closing up and healing, it's possible that damage can occur. The macula is what provides acuity of our vision (i.e. whether we see 20/20 or not). This new hemorrage was tentatively diagnosed as a perimacula or peripapallery.

As a result of this assessment, the main concern from the new hemorrage was that Jack Henry may have some loss of vision (mainly depth perception and possibly not being able to get the vision in the left eye better than 20/70 even with corrective lens). This possible vision impairment would be related to the natural progression of how the eyes develop or mature after birth. For example, if one eye had something temporarily impact focusing and general vision, then the brain would compensate to strengthen the other eye, which may or may not be a permanent imbalance in vision between the two eyes.

Ahhh, so now we're finishing up with Dr. Wittenberg. Dr. Hittner sent us for a consult with Dr. Wittenberg because there was concern as to what may be floating in the viscous part of the eye (the jelly-like area or the main body of the eye). The object floating in the eye looked similar to a possible parasite - thankfully, it was NOT that - which could have been a source of the new hemorrage. Instead, it appears that the object in the viscous is just a large (relatively-speaking) clump of dried blood.

Yet, it appears that there may be fresh blood trailing down near the optic nerve. Fortunately, according to Dr. Wittenberg the macula looks good and the optic nerve appears not to be swollen or irritated.

Due to the fresh blood though, both doctors are concerned as to where the source of this small bleeding may be since it is not appearing in a place that they would expect.. As a result, Jack Henry is having an MRI of his eyes ordered for him.

Poor little guy - he handles all of the poking and prodding so well. He's quite the chilled out kid. Yet, having people put there fingers in his eyes to give him the dilation drops is hard on him. Honestly, every doctor and nurse is gentle, but the eye drops are not his favorite thing in the least. With the MRI, Jack Henry will be sedated, so we'll have to how that works out for him. Hopefully, a simple diagnosis will be easily found so that we can stop worrying.

*#*#*#*#*

Oh - as for the picture... his eyes were dilated again and the lights in the building were bright as well as the outside, so what do you do, but get the cool shades from the doc?