Earlier this week, my youngest son and I made the long drive to Detroit and back for a visit with his eye surgeon. We made it 1790 miles in three days, stopped in St. Louis to see my sister and her family, and even made a slight detour into South Bend, Indiana for a quick walking tour on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. A trip like this, with just me, a seven-year-old, and the DVD player is hard, but my son and I are old-hands at it. We usually make the trip three to four times a year (I know what you are thinking: why don’t they just fly up and back? Two reasons: first, if my son does need more surgery then the surgeon puts a gas bubble in his eye, which means he couldn’t fly for 8 to 10 days and who wants to be stuck in Detroit for 8 to 10 days. Second, have you seen how much it costs to fly these days?), so we know what we are doing and what to expect.
The only real variable in the trip is the report we will get from the eye surgeon. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, my son suffers from retinopathy of prematurity, ROP, for short, which means that his retinas are detaching. Unfortunately, there are no real physical symptoms to let us know if his retinas are pulling away so it is always with a sense of foreboding that we make the trip. We try to be prepared for anything, ready to jump into a new surgery or into the long drive home.
It has been six months since our last surgery, which is the longest we have ever been able to go between office visits and it has been eighteen months since the last surgery, which is also the longest my son has ever gone between surgeries. I was particularly nervous for this office visit because this is the longest we have ever gone and frankly, I didn’t want to get my hopes up.
After making the fourteen hour drive, two hours in the waiting room, and ten minutes with the doctor, he announced that his eyes looked the same as they did six months ago, they are stable and we don’t have to come back for twelve months. I literally jumped for joy. Joy that my son’s eyes are stable, joy that he didn’t need any more surgery, joy that I don’t have to make the drive to Detroit for a whole year. Talk about an early present from the Easter Bunny.