194 Some Progress

Yee Haw. I have finally lost a pound, for a total loss of 22.4 lbs.


I took my good friend Eva's advice and just tried to eat healthy, not worrying about my weight. (Asante, Eva)

This week my post is about my son, Ryan. Ryan had a corneal transplant 3 days ago due to the long term degenerative effects of an eye disease called keratoconus. I wanted to educate myself (and any interested readers) on what keratoconus is and why a transplant is sometime necessary.

Keratoconus is a thinning disorder of the cornea that causes distortion and reduced vision. Over time the cornea changes from a normal gradual curve shape to a more conical shape as shown in the diagram: (image thanks to www.eyeconx.com) The disease is typically diagnosed in the patient's adolescent years and attains its most severe state in the twenties and thirties, which is exactly what happened to Ryan.


The cornea thins and pushs forward into a cone-like shape, thus the name kera (cornea) conus (cone shaped) Here is how the world may look to a keratoconus patient (thanks Wikipedia).
There are some excellent vision simulators showing how the world looks to people with keratoconus as well as a myriad of other vision disorders at thevisioncommunity.com. It is a FABULOUS site at which you can find tons of information about most eye disorders.

I was able to easily understand keratoconus when an eye doctor explained something called Munson's sign or Munson's gaze. This is a V-shaped indentation in the lower eyelid when the patient's gaze is directed downwards. You can easily see the conical shape of the eye. Here is an example of what you could observe.


Over the years Ryan has gone from being able to wear soft contacts, to a special keratoconus hard contact which flattens the cornea, to a point very recently where contact simply fell off his eye--the cornea was simply too steep to hold a contact.

At that point the only option available for somebody who wants to see is a corneal transplant. That is where he is at today.

His new cornea was stitched into place with 32 stitches, 16 in one diretion, 16 in the opposite diretion. Ryan needs a series of drops, anti-rejection drops, and a special cream in his eye every four hours. He needs to keep his eye protected at night with a special eye patch so that he cannot accidentally rub his eye. He sees the doctor this week to find out whether the transplant is successful or not.

Keratoconus usually affects people in both eyes, so Ryan has been advised to stop rubbing his good eye and never have refractive surgery in that eye. At this point we are unsure of how things will go, but we hope that Ryan will do well. There are many thousands of people who have successful corneal transplant patients and we hope that he will be one of them.

I am grateful to people who become cornea donors. Without them, Ryan would not have the option of a transplant. Now we are hoping that things go well and that he will end up with good vision.

Here are some sites about keratoconus and corneal transplants that you may find helpful:

• National Keratoconus Foundation
• Keratoconus.com
• Eye Bank Association of America
• Eye Donation.org
• Keratoconus at Wikipedia.org
• Cornea.org
• Corneal Transplant Mayo Clinic
  
• Corneal Transplant at Wikipedia
  

Thank you for reading my blog. You will see less of me next week. I hope that Ryan will as well.