Clayton Family Blog: Tear Duct Surgery

On February 25, Keegan had surgery to un-clog his tear duct in his left eye. He has had a clogged tear duct ever since he was born. We have had to clean his eye pretty regularly his whole life. Sometimes when he would wake up from a nap it would be crusted shut due to the gunk in his eye. Very often it was just goopy and runny. We met with a pediatric eye doctor, Dr. Jeffrey Board this summer after a recommendation from our pediatrician. Dr. Board told us then he would definitely have to have the surgery and we scheduled it for January. When January rolled around it looked like his eye was clearing up. So I called the doctor and we postponed the surgery and I was supposed to watch his eye carefully to see if really was in fact cleared up. Well of course, on the day that he was supposed to have the surgery originally, he woke up with his eye crusted shut. So we kept an eye on it and after one more visit with Dr. Board decided we needed we did indeed need to go ahead with the surgery. So on Friday, February 25 we got up 4am and took Keegan to REX hospital (the same hospital where he was born). Since he was going to go under anesthesia we couldn't give him anything to eat or drink after midnight the night in preparation. So I got up at 11:45 and fed him one last time. I think this helped because he did fine not eating until after the surgery. Keegan slept all the way until the time we needed to put him in the car. We got everything in the car first and then took Keegan straight from the bed to the car, no diaper change, clothes change, nothing in hopes he'd go back to sleep. Yea, right. We got to the hospital around 5am, changed his clothes and diaper in the car and then went inside. After we got him checked in we had to wait for about 10 minutes, then we finalized his registration and were sent to another waiting room. We waited there for about 15 minutes. Keegan did great in the waiting rooms. We had brought some books for him so he was fine walking around looking at his books. Finally they called us back and we went to a prep room where we had to change him into a hospital gown and they gave him some medicine to help calm him down (they called it "baby valium"). The medicine actually did the opposite at first it seemed and got him a bit hyper (the nurse said that happens to some). We tried to keep him calm by letting him play with our phones, reading to him and laying him on the bed. Then he calmed way down and we were able to lay him on the bed and let him get ready. Once he was calm and in a daze they wheeled him back to the OR. It was very strange and rather difficult to see him laying in this big (even though it was kid sized) hospital bed and being wheeled away by nurses. Once he was gone, we went back out to the waiting room. We were there no more than 10-15 minutes when the doctor came out to tell us it was done and Keegan did great. We had to wait for about 10 more minutes while he was waking up then they let us come back to him. I wish they had let us come back before he woke up so we'd be there when he woke up because he was terrified when he woke up. I could hear him screaming all the way down the hall. When we finally got to him and they confirmed we were his parents by checking our id bracelets they let me pick him up and nurse him to try to calm him down, plus he was pretty hungry by this point! It took a while for him to calm down, he would nurse for a minute then let go and scream, then nurse, then scream. Poor thing, it took about 15 minutes for him to really calm down. After that he was fine. Once we were discharged, Justin went and got the car and a nursed wheeled me and Keegan out in a wheel chair (not really sure why they did this but it was hospital policy). Once we got in the car, I gave Keegan some juice and crackers. He was still pretty thirsty and hungry. He did ok on the way home, though I was glad I was in the backseat with him because if he'd been alone, I think he would have had a harder time on the way home. We got home around 8:45. I let him sit on the couch and watch one of his sign language videos then around 9:15 he went down very smoothly for his morning nap. The rest of the day went on as normal. He stuck to his regular nap routine and everything, it was like nothing ever happened. Now, a week later, his tear duct is still very clear and clean. No goop, no crust, no gunk. Yay!