no, she's not crying

When Frannie got here with tear duct problems, we had already been down that path thanks to Tripp. He had stents put in his tear ducts, they came out on their own, and we never had another problem. Frannie has been a different story...

About 9 months following her first stent placement, I pulled one of the stents out that was hanging out of her left eye. Once the stent was removed, her eye started draining normally. Since her right eye wasn't, we [well my MIL since Max ended up being born that week :)] took her back in and he had to remove the right one. He said if it didn't start working to bring her back.

Well, it didn't so we did. She typically has a tear sitting atop her right cheek at all times. Her tear duct doesn't drain the normal fluid in her eyes, so they just spill out. Everywhere we go, people say "aww- why are you crying little girl?"

Me: "No, she's not crying. She has tear duct issues."

Friday, he put dye in her eyes:

 

This stuff is pretty cool. This fluorescein dye shines neon green under a black light and lets the eye doc see how her eye is draining. It's pretty freaky the first time you see your kid with crazy, zombie eyes. This wasn't my first rodeo. Wish I was quicker with the camera. You can tell in the pic how it is pooled up in her right eye even after wiping it multiple times... This girl was such a trooper, and was so cooperative at the eye doc.

 

When he did the first surgery, he said her eye was a little different that other kids. She was born without a complete right tear duct and it was attached to the bone. So he "unstuck" it, but it looks like it still won't cooperate. We're all signed up for surgery attempt number 2! He said we try at least 3 times to "unclog the drain" before we move on to a different and bigger surgery.

 

(See how yellow her right eye is? And her left is white?)

 

Here's hoping this one does the trick. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed so we don't have these issues with Max. So far, so good.