Kimberlynn, like all our girls, was born with clogged tear ducts. Who knew that such little holes could create such awful problems when clogged. Eyes sealed shut most morning, constant tears running down cheeks, eyes red and raw from being cleaned and from being wet all the time. Me always picking at her eyes trying to make it look like I actually take care of her, rather than looking like she never took a bath.
Most babies, like Sam and Allison (Camryn is falling under the other category with Kimber) grow out of this by 6 months. Their tear ducts open and begin to work properly. Kimber wasn't so lucky (and neither is Camryn).
When Kimber was 12 months old she had her first surgery to fix it. The had to put her under, then they basically stick a tool (think paper clip like) into the tear duct and probe it. This is a simple surgery and it typically works.
Not with Kimber.
This picture would have been taken sometime around the time Kimber had her first surgery. Does she look like anyone else you know?? :)
For some reason (I'm assuming b/c we moved to Washington, I started working, new insurance, finding new doctors, etc) we waited until she was almost 3 to do the next surgery. So that poor child had goopy runny eyes until she was almost 3. So sad.
The second time they did the surgery, the tear duct specialist (can you believe someone actually chooses tear ducts when deciding what type of medicine to go into???), decided that rather than just probe it, they would stick a thin tube (think fishing line) between the ducts of the upper and lower lid (did you know you had tear ducts on both lids...I didn't until that day in the doctors office). The thin tube would go through the tear ducts and be knotted inside her nose. So basically she had a fishing line circle in her head.
If I remember correctly the hope was that the tube would stay in for 6 weeks, forcing the tear duct to heal open (rather than re-close like it did after the probe) (similar to how you have to leave a piercing stud in your ear to let your ear heal so the earring hole will remain open).
Fast forward about 3 days from the day of the surgery. My Grandma Riding passed away that same week. We were driving down to Utah for the funeral (that car trip was something else...every seat in my dad's suburban was full (8 people...me, Konrad, Kimber, tiny baby Samantha, my mom and dad, Michelle, and her brand new husband Richard (they had been married less than a month). Steph must have been at BYU already. I was nursing Sam, but b/c we were driving I was actually pumping. In the car with my dad and new brother in law. Awesomely awkward)
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Notice my poor brother-in-law. He never even told us that he gets carsick. Sitting in the way back. Poor guy. Welcome to the family :)
Anyways, so we are driving to Utah and just outside of Boise, well enough out side of Boise to feel like the middle of no where, Kimber is rubbing her eye, catches the little tube and pulls it out. Now she has a big loop of tubing hanging out of her eye. Remember it is knotted way up in her nose, so there is no way for us to remove it or put it back in. So we stop at a rest stop and call the doctor to figure out what to do. They tell us to put an eye patch on her and that they will refer us to a doctor in Salt Lake who can remove the tube for us.
So we buy her an eye patch and continue on our journey. The eye patch is basically to protect her from hurting herself by pulling on the tube.
We had to attend the viewing part of my Grandmother's funeral (maybe even all of the funeral, I don't remember) before we could go to the doctor, so we showed up with my cute almost 3 year old with her eye patched. Which we didn't think much about, didn't think it would cause a scene.
My dads Aunt Zettie , who was pretty old and very hard of hearing, saw Kimber and starting saying "Oh the poor child, she is blind" "That poor baby. Why would she be blind?" Yelling (b/c she can't hear herself) it to whomever she is talking too. It was causing quite a scene. Finally someone, I don't remember who, grabbed her little handy dandy notebook (name that cartoon :)) and wrote down that Kimber was not blind, just had something in her and we were trying to protect the eye. Phew, crisis averted.
It was pretty funny.
Luckily it worked that time around, even though it was only in for 1/6 of the time it should have been) and her eyes have been goop free since then (well except for the 20 times she's had pink eye....).
This was 1 month after the surgery, on her 3rd birthday.
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