Day +1407: Recovering well from surgery

Just a quick update to say that Mina's surgery went well, and she is recovering nicely at home this week. Dr. Good said she had a dense cataract, so it's good we are getting it done now. Mina has had to wear a rigid patch all week to protect the eye, and she hasn't been back to school yet. We can take the patch off Sunday, but we'll probably put it back on when she goes to bed Sunday night. She has been a very good sport. She was very brave going to the hospital, but just before the operation when we were waiting in the pre-op room, she got scared and just buried her head on my shoulder. But she was fine when she came out of the operation, and she enjoyed the popsicle and movie in the hospital room.

She hasn't felt any pain, but the eye patch is uncomfortable and she's been kind of bored at home. Wednesday was a very hard day for her, she was whiny and fragile and she did not want to let us put her eye drops in. She has slowly gotten used to the idea, and tonight she gamely held down her eyelid to make it easier for me. We are going to take it kind of easy this weekend, but next week she will be back in school and basically back to normal. At some point over the next few weeks she needs to go and get glasses and/or contact lenses. And we will need to schedule the surgery for her left eye. We won't be looking forward to that, but it needs to happen.

Isaac has had a tough week too. Teacher Julie said there was one point on Tuesday where he started crying because "Sissy's sad". But Thursday he had a rough day at school. He was overtired, and he kind of loses control when he gets that way. He wasn't treating the other kids very well, particularly some of the younger kids. Things have been a bit unsettled for a while now, and I know that takes its toll on Isaac. He definitely has some anxieties that come out at times, and Julie thinks some of it might be related to cancer sibling issues, i.e., the complex emotions from worrying about his sister but also feeling jealous and abandoned because of the attention she is getting. We've been kind of assuming that he wouldn't have many of the sibling issues we've heard about because neither he nor Mina have any memories of her cancer treatment. But this is an indication that just all the followup treatment could be enough to trigger some of the same issues.

The kids have been asking lots of questions this week about medical issues and when Mina was in the hospital. Mina asked the obvious question why she had to have cataract surgery and Isaac didn't. So that has led to discussions about her leukemia and what things were like when we were in the hospital and what Isaac was doing, etc. I just try to answer the questions the best I can in ways they can understand.