Joe's Technical Eye Details...

Carrie wants me to update on what actually happened, because I got to watch the end of the procedure. I've been told that some people go all fainty when hearing this stuff, so if you're sqeamish, please head over to the photo gallery, it's turbo cute.

The key of the operation is a low power red laser (around 600 nm wavelength), which the Dr. sends through a magnifying glass (which has no effect on the coherent light of the laser) to the retina. The magnifying glass is so the Doc can see his aim point - he's got a "laser" pointer like on a laser level that shows his target. The laser fires pulses when a foot pedal is pressed, with 400 milliwatts of power with 200 millisecond duration every 300 ms. This energy is absorbed in the back of the eye and burns blood vessels to slow their growth.

But the laser can only be focused on a fixed target - so Evie had to be paralyzed. As in - breathing won't work paralyzed. So we first gave her an IV painkiller, then put in a breathing tube hooked to a ventilator (Dr. Hiller was very efficient at that part), and then gave the paralytic agent.

The Doc aims the laser with his head, much like a shark- or penguin- mounted laser beam in my evil supervillian schemes. Turns out it's highly uncomfortable to aim the head laser through the magnifying glass into a retina for 45 minutes. Dr. Sippy did it a 1600 some times on Evie's right eye, fewer on her left. His laser counts pulses for him. Added to this, you have to get all around the edges of the retina, which means dilating the pupil with eye drops and pushing the eye around with a probe. Highly irritating for poor Evie's eyes - the drops and the probing is probably the worst part.

But it's pretty straightforward, and Dr. Sippy knew his stuff - I asked him about close work affecting nearsighedness, which our girls probably face, and he had good knowledge of current research.

But as those of you who have had surgery know, coming back off anesthesia stinks, big time. And poor Evie didn't like it much - she's normally pretty mellow, but a little Maggie-style fury would be nice to get her back off the ventilator - her chest doesn't sound nice when the vent is forcing air. So we're waiting now for her to get back to her cannulas as soon as she can.