This is one of our kindergarten students, Tedd Edme. We introduced him on this blog back in October because we were working hard to get him a medical visa. That visa was issued in February. When Tedd first arrived, we didn’t know if he had any vision in his eye at all. The cornea was so cloudy, swollen, scarred and rough! We didn’t know if the optic nerve had yet been affected by the pressure. Tedd also was in constant pain, was irritated, and his eye watered continually. He had surgery on March 7th.
Although the next 3 days of recover were very rough, after the first week he rarely ever complained of any pain and his eye just looked a lot healthier. An update from his host family said, “The cloudiness is dissipating, the swelling is decreasing, and the scarring is even flattening out little by little.”
On March 20th, his host did a test similar to the one in this video to see if he had vision in the right eye. He did! She would have to bring the object to within 4 or 5 inches of his eye before he could recognize it. Check out how he did a week later by clicking here (youtube link)!
Yesterday Tedd had another follow-up with the doctor. Initially they thought they would need to put Tedd under anesthesia again to do a really good evaluation of his eye. However, he has been cooperative enough the last two visits and the cloudiness has cleared from his eye enough that they have been able to see and test what they need to that they did not want to put his body through the ordeal of going under anesthesia again. And they felt that he is ready to go back to Haiti! Haitian Roots is so grateful for all of those who helped Tedd on this journey. A special thanks goes to Julie Denton with “Arm’s of Hope Children’s Home”. She and her assistant, Ernso Brize, led us through the process of getting the medical visa. Dr. Bruce Colton was the first to begin making connections in Dallas, Texas for opthalmologists to help with Tedd’s case. He followed the situation from the beginning to end, securing the needed services and necessary documentation for the visa, donating his own time and money, as well as being the one to give Tedd an eye exam the first day he was in the states. And of course, a HUGE thank you goes to the Glaucoma Associates of Texas, especially Dr. Helen Kornmann, and Drs. Godfrey, Smith, and Fellman for their expertise, the anesthesia, the surgery, and facility–all of which were donated! Thank you all, so much! Please watch Tedd’s thank you in this short video.
THANK YOU!!!!!
