Cara was born with a congenital cataract in her left eye. This wasn't picked up until she was 8 months old! Naturally our first reaction was one of shock and devastation.

CATARACTS??? This is something that old people get - not babies, and certainly not our baby!!!

WHAT WE DID

First and foremost we had to find a Paediatric Ophthalmologist, and information, information, information. This isn't something that we could get info on from our local GP's office - no pamphlets or brochures that I could find!

I wrote to every hospital, association or group that I could think of - but I came up with very little :-( Just the same "things" over and over again - and to make it worse none of it seemed to be good news!

One day my Aunty (thanks Pat) suggested that we try searching the "net" - and that's exactly what we did. Low and behold - the "net" had everything we could possibly want - and more.

We found a site dedicated to Paediatric Ophthalmology and even a support group for parents just like us. At last, we weren't alone in our fight and struggle.

We were one of the "lucky" ones - Cara's cataract was incomplete so her vision still had developed a bit - this was really important. The "incomplete" cataract meant that she had some peripheral vision.

At first we patched her "good" eye to try and prevent amblyopia - this worked for a little while, but by the time she was 3 years old the cataract had started to become bigger and thicker - this meant that surgery was the only option to help save our daughter's sight!!!

THE SURGERY

This has got to be up there with one of the worst days of my life. All that I could think about was that my daughter's eye was being cut into. I should have been thinking, "this is going to save my daughter's sight" - but I couldn't. I was so scared - it was a long day, and also a long few weeks afterwards.

I have great faith in our Paediatric Ophthalmologist, he is wonderful and I would recommend him in a flash :-) Even so, this is still my daughter - my baby!!!

The operation went along smoothly, Cara had the cataract removed and an IOL (Intraocular Lens) implant. She was fitted with a contact lens a few weeks after surgery to help her vision, she also wears glasses and patching is still on the list.

AND NOW

We are getting great results and it is now 2 years post-op, her visual acuity is 6/12 (20/40) corrected, and that is GREAT!!!

She is still wearing her contact lens, bifocal glasses and of the course the all important patching.

So far no other complications have presented themselves - no scar tissue, secondary cataract or glaucoma :-)

LINKS

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