Russell's Team

I write this note this morning having heard some very bad news.  One of Russell's friends from Edmonton is back in hospital.  We were in the same room together with this little girl at Christmas time (2008) and became good friends with her family.  Russell was born on Aug 5/08 and this little girl was born Aug 8. 

She has had huge development issues that I cannot begin to describe.  We found out this morning that she was taken to hospital yesterday and has had to have emergency surgery.  She has a long road ahead of her.  This little one is as tough as they get...she has constantly defied the odds.  If anyone can pull this off ... she can.

We are also getting prepared for Russell's surgery on Tuesday.  This surgery will attempt to correct Russells eyes that tend to cross.  The surgery will take a little over an hour.  What the surgeion will do is cut the muscle in the eye and then re-attach the muscle in a new location to straighten the eyes.  Measurements have been taken of his eyes to determine where to re-attach the muscle.  Russell is far-sighted and wears glasses...this does not get corrected, in this surgery, and he will still need glasses.  The surgery does accompish two things.  Cosmetically his eyes should look straight, more importantly with both eyes being straight it should give him proper binocular vision.  In other words...having both eyes being able to focus on the same thing, which does not happen now because one eye or the other will wander.  The other thing that needs to happen is to train Russell's brain to coordinate both eyes after the surgery.  The idea is that Russell's brain should like this new vision and will attempt to keep both eyes aligned.  So it is a physical correction of the eye but for permanent effect the brain does need to take over and control the muscles around the eyes. 

Tuesday will be a long day at the hospital...we'll be in early...around 7:00 AM and I don't expect to leave until 7:00 PM.  We were told that Russell should be close to full speed the next day and may not even need Tylenol.  They say he should resume normal activity by the second day.