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Eye Surgery: Why my Body Doesn't Listen to My Brain"

I Spy With Silly Eye:

"Silly eye" is an understatement. As you all know (probably) I have mild cerebral palsy, which affects my right side.  I was diagnosed at around age 2-3. I had glasses since I was a year old, but it wasn't until I started walking funny on the outside of my right foot and talking out of one side of my mouth that my parents
knew anything was wrong. After many years of physical therapy, barely anyone could tell I even have CP. I said goodbye to my leg brace at age 10, goodbye to glasses at 12 years old, and kept getting stronger!

(picture: doing physical therapy at home)

I was very fortunate to have such a mild case. I still catch myself holding my arm stiff (t-rex style as I call it) and I have trouble with tying shoes, cutting food, doing buttons, etc. Sometimes my right hand just drops items, and overall my right side is super weak. I try very hard to work out and keep it's strength up, and overall it has gone pretty well.

 I have no real obstacles. I'm VERY VERY lucky!

I have noticed though in the past couple years my right eye starts drifting out to the right. It's not a lazy eye (where it goes wherever it wants), it jut drifts to the right. It's called Strabismus. The good news is my eyes have great vision (meaning 20/20 vision). Bad news, because my right eye can't focus (the muscles or too weak to listen to what I'm telling them to do) I have trouble reading or seeing object's depth perception.

Perhaps, I won't run into stuff and start enjoy reading again after it is corrected. Yes, they can correct it, it's actually a pretty common surgery. And the eye surgeon said that doing the tests he ran could tell him a lot about my chances of it being corrected. During the surgery they cut/tightened/ stitch the eye muscle that control the movement of my eye. And he said the better the vision, the better the chances for it to work.

He actually said at one point " You can tell your brain is trying to get it to do what it wants. So your brain is getting frustrated your body isn't listening.."   HAHA, I actually chuckled.

Story of my life!!!! I'm smart. I'm not as smart as I should be. Because my body got sick all the time I missed out on lots of school and my body couldn't handle Graduate School, so I took a medical withdraw after spending half of the 1st semester in and out of the hospial. So to say my body is frustrating, because it can't keep up with my brain, MAY BE the BIGGEST understatement of my life.

But, anyway. I'm having the surgery on April 7th (day after my birthday)! They do have to put me out for it, so clearly I have to get Doc Boas to sign off at my pre-surgery appointment on March 28th. Even if I'm not under for as long as I might be for a intestinal surgery, there is always risk with anesthesia.

So I gotta make sure my numbers are up (weight and lung function).I want this surgery to be smooth sailing..

Gotta be top of my game for all the Great Strides Walks coming up! I will be posting more information about them and tips for fundraising on my CF Facebook page!  

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