Dean's ONH Blog

Hi there,

Sorry it has been a while but things have been very busy. Dean is doing great since we got home. He has show great improvement. He is no longer considered legally blind. His acuity has changed from 20/600 in right to 20/140 and left shadows only to 20/700. He wears contacts and reading glasses have changed from 12x to 4x. He is doing very well in middle school and says he is able to see much better. He told us the other day that with his monocular he was able to read the board with his left eye. This is not the better eye and that is a huge improvement for him. He goes to the eye Dr. again on 11/4/10 for a low vision eval and we will see if any more changes have occured. Thank you to everyone who continues to follow us and we look forward to posting more updates as they occur.

Well Dean went to the eye Dr. today and his right eye has changed a lot. Before China he was 20/600 and now he is 20/200 with lens and 20/300 without. He left eye was not able to get a reading before we left more than a shadow but now he is able to see 20/700. His reading glasses were a 12x and now it is a 4x. He will wear contacts instead of glasses for everyday use and continue to use reading glasses when reading. With contacts and glasses on he is able to read newspaper print. He is very excited as we are too. If he continues to make progress his dream of driving is not to far off. He will return to the eye Dr. in Sept. for a follow up. He did notice this weekend when driving in the country with his grandmother that he was drifting to the left. He has been driving off and on for a year and has not ever noticed much on the left side. This is supper exciting for us. Thank you so much for everyone who has been following us and the thoughts and prayers. They are greatly appreciated.

Well we are home.  We arrived home on Sat. the 3rd at 6:40pm.  We are still having to adjust back to Texas time but all is going well. According to Dean’s discharge testing he has show good improvment on his right eye. Reaction time for a normal eye is 120 and he is currently at 130. He started at 145 so this is a great improvment for him. He is noticing little changes each day and is still very happy about going to China. He is very happy to be home with family and friends and we will contiune to monitor his progress. Thank you to everyone for you support and prayers and we will be keeping you posted as things change.

Well after talking with Matt Unger and the Dr.’s here at the hospital we have decided to take an extra IV treatment that will be on Wed. (Tuesday Texas time). If we decide to come back at a later time they will also give us a second Retro balbar injection (around the eye) in the left eye without any extra cost to us. Dean is very excited about getting another treatment and we look forward to seeing if there has been any change with the optic nerve with the testing that will be done on Thursday our time. We leave to come home on Sat. morning at 7:40 am (Friday 6:40pm TX time). We are all very excited about coming home. Thank you so much for everyone’s thoughts and prayers and continue to pray as we still have a year to see results.

So far everything is ok. We are not able to tell if the vision has changed for the good but Dean seems to think it is normal. So fingers crossed that this all works out ok. Will keep you posted but will be leaving the hospital tonight to clear our thoughts and decide what we should do next.

Well it is 4:30 pm on Friday here. The good news is Dean has been out of the OR for an hour and a half and doing fine. The bad news is they did the right eye instead of the left eye that we requested to be done. Our thinking with wanting to do the left eye was he does not have a lot of vision in his left eye and this is still an experimental trial. The reason we were given was it was a human error. Dr. Apple is the Dr. that is working with Dean daily and she told them to do the left and the other Dr. in the OR changed without consent. So everyone keep the prayers going and fingers crossed that this turns out for the best. This is the waiting game now. He has come out of the anesthesia and is feeling much better.

Well it is 3pm here on Friday afternoon and Dean is in the OR getting the last treatment. BJ is with him as I am not able to attend since it appears I either have a cold or sever allergies and to be safe I am staying in the room today. He is good spirits and has seemed to have made really good friends with a 12 yr old girl. They have been hanging out a lot the last few days watching movies and playing cards. Tomorrow we are all suppose to meet them at the Holiday in for a swim and Sun. go shopping with them. I will post more on how he is doing when he returns. He had another quick vision exam this morning and no new changes to report as of now.

Well Dean has had his 5th treatment this week and is doing well. So far looking at the eye chart he is showing sign of improvment but not a lot. However when looking at him in day to day activities he we are able to see more progress than the eye chart. He is now able to read the book a little further away and able to see regular size playing cards while placed on the table instead of having them up to his face. He is also getting really goodat playing black jack with another person here. I am affraid he is wanting to go to Las Vegas next. He loves to gamble on the touch pad. Looking to go to the Gimo with some other families this weekend for the last time as Dean has bought a watch and it has a broken peice he wants to get fixed. Other than that not much else going on. We are hoping to change his last spinal to a Balbar injection (this Friday but Thursday TX time) if they can get the Dr. from downtown. This is an injection that goes under his left eye while he is sedated. They have been showing good results with this and hopefully it will help him as well. We are just waiting to see if they are able to get the Dr. We will keep you all posted.

Well Dean had another spinal today and is doing great. He is still showing a little improvement and seems to be having fun. It was very hot here today with a heat index of 94 and very humid with no AC. We are all trying to keep cool but all doing well. Check facebook for photos.

Well three down three to go we are half way home. Dean has been doing great. He had been running a low grade fever and not sure why but that is all gone now. Yesterday afternoon he had his third treatment via IV. He is showing sign of improvement after the vision test yesterday morning. In his right eye when we got here was able to read the large E at 3.2 meters and can see it at 3.9 meters now. In his left eye he was .94 meters and now 1.18 meters. We are not sure 100% how much change as the conditions when was tested  were different with an overcast sky yesterday and a sunny sky the first time. So we are going to retest on a sunny day but for know a little progress. No more fever and looking forward to getting out of the room a little more.