The Eye Doctor and the Vet

Finn had a follow-up with the ophthalmologist on Friday.  She's pretty sure Finn's Horner's syndrome won't go away.  And she confirmed that it involves the bottom eye lid, too.  But if that's the worst thing that comes out of this whole nightmare, I'm okay with that.  I'm more than okay with that!  Besides, if it bothers him when he's older, he can always get plastic surgery to fix the eye droop.  I'm hoping he'll like the two different eye colors.  Though it looks to me like his right eye is changing just a little; in a few months the difference might not be as dramatic as it seems now.

Two weeks ago, I took Vagus to the vet to get his claw removed from the pad of his foot, and while he was there, the vet found a new heart murmur.  His paw is fully healed now, but, based on last week's echocardiogram, he has mild heart failure.  And based on his blood and urine tests, he has early kidney failure, too.  He's 16 years old, so it's not a shocker, but it does make me sad.  For now he's on a tiny dose of a blood pressure medication, and he has to go back in 6 months for an echocardiogram.  Serial MRIs for Finn and serial echocardiograms for Vagus.  Healthcare around here is a lot more complicated (and expensive) than I ever anticipated!

Vagus

Anxiety

Ever since he was born, Finn has had this cute little thing with his right eye where it doesn't always open all the way, or looks droopy/smaller in pictures.  At first it looked swollen too, like his right ear was at birth, and so I thought it was just something that would eventually go away.  Only it didn't.

And then I noticed that while his left eye was starting to get darker, maybe green or hazel, his right eye was staying blue.  I noticed this about the same time I noticed that his pupil on the right was smaller, too.  The small pupil and droopy eyelid thing sounded vaguely familiar to me - it took a bit, but I eventually remembered something from medical school - Horner's syndrome.  I did some research, and decided that Finn probably does have Horner's syndrome, and so I made an appointment with an ophthalmologist to confirm the diagnosis.

That appointment was today.  It was a LONG appointment, and right during Finn's naptime, but he was so great. He charmed the elderly patients in the waiting room, who all tried to get him to smile and talked about how cute and how big he is ("He's 12 weeks old?  I need to come eat at your house!"), cooperated with the exam, and only cried when he had his pupils dilated and the doctor shone a bright light into his eyes to look at his retinas.

The final verdict is that he does have Horner's.  Most of the time, congenital Horner's syndrome has no known cause, and the only thing it means is that he'll have a droopy eye lid that can be fixed with plastic surgery someday if he wants, and that he might have two different colored eyes.  But sometimes, congenital Horner's syndrome is caused by a tumor - a neuroblastoma - which is a type of cancer.  It's not a huge chance, but it's enough of a chance that the ophtho wants to schedule an MRI for sometime in the next few weeks.

I knew all of this before I walked into the appointment, but somehow having it all confirmed is terrifying.  The thought of my little baby going under general anesthesia for the MRI is bad enough, but then the fear of what the MRI might show is overwhelming.  I'm feeling optimistic that the scan is going to be normal, but I keep having thoughts of what will happen if it's not.

I'm going to try to stop thinking those thoughts, and focus on being optimistic.  Kids go under general anesthesia all the time and do fine.  And chances are huge that the MRI will be fine.  I need to keep repeating that.  Over and over.  And over.