Basilar Tip Anuerysm & Eye problem

[Connie1211]

My mother survived a ruptured basilar tip aneurysm & had clipping done in 9/07 behind her left eye. We knew the left eye wouldn't be able to open right away, but it appears there is little progress. She does have movement with the eyelid, but the drooping (looks like paralysis above the eye) is not allowing her to open her eye. She, like so many other survivors, has become quite obsessed w/this eye and just wants to be able to open that eye. We remind her everyday how lucky & fortunate we are to have her here. But this does not soothe her. We saw a neuro-opthamologist yesterday & he wants to wait a year after the aneurysm to refer her to any other specialists.
-
Does anyone have any similar situations? I just don't think there is going to be any changes in 4 months, since there hasn't been any changes in over 3 months. Please share me your stories - I just want to be able to help my mom. Thank you.

[ChrisC]

Hi Connie - I'm sorry that your Mom continues to have problems with her eye, but I'm very happy to hear that she is a survivor!

My advice would be to see her primary and have him/her refer you to a neuro-ophthalmologist; or get a referral from her eye doctor. It MAY be a little too early to determine if this will be permanent - there are others on the board who have gone thru similar situations and I'm sure they will be telling you what happened to them! Thank goodness for experiences and we have alot to share around here! My prayers to your Mom.

[sarahin]

Connie,
I have an eyelid that I have to squeeze shut to close. I just found out that there is such a thing as a neuro-opthalmologist this morning. I was so surprised to find your thread and Chris' post! I've been hit in the eye by rain, a bug, and my cat's tail. Not good to have bad blinking ability. I'm also upset that it looks bad- you can see the white all around the pupil. I have empathy for your mom. I have an appointment next month and I might be given the one year statement myself. Please give her a hug and remind her that four months isn't too long a time. They probably want to make sure the stituation is stable so they can fix it correctly for the long term. I had to have the other eyelid's muscles resectioned for other medical reasons 9 years ago and that eye actually looked better than my other one. Tell her good luck for me.
Sarah
It's summer and dark sunglasses are cool!!!! They hide a lot too.

[Greenie]

Connie, my Mom has the droopy left eye too. She also had a basilur tip bleed. Is your Mom doing pretty good after rehab?

One thing you want to make sure is that she's blinking. If not, get some good eye drops like Genteel Gel and have her use that to prevent the cornea from getting dry.

No one but God knows when this stuff will correct itself. Believe me, I've asked everybody!!

Hugs, Brenda

[KarenT]

Connie,

I had an unruptured annie clipped in Jan. '07, and I also dealt with the droopy eyelid and double vision. I was extremely "obsessed" with the situation and it was very hard to be patient. She may be feeling incredibly self-conscious. People would tell me that it didn't look that bad, but I remember I didn't even want to go out in public because I felt like everyone was going to stare at me. Did her neuro-ophthalmologist indicate if these issues are caused by a third cranial nerve palsy? My neuro-ophth. said that with nerve issues, the only thing you can do is wait and that exercising the eye, patching the good eye, etc. does not speed the healing along. He did indicate to me that there is a minor surgery that can be done to lift the eyelid, but it is typically done at the earliest 6 months post-op. My eyelid is now completely open and I only have very minor double vision in my peripheral vision, so I am happy about that. I wonder if her healing is taking longer because she was dealing with a ruptured annie. Can she open the eye at all? One thing I found helpful was that the neuro-ophth took baseline data to tell me how many points of misalignment I had as well as what percent I could open my eye and move the eyeball. It was encouraging to go back and see how the numbers had changed. Did the doctor give her baselines like that?

[Connie1211]

Thank you everyone that has replied. Chris, your words are very encouraging & Sarah & Karen your real life stories are so uplifting & very needed :)

Brenda--I know your mom is in a similar situation as mine. She is almost 9 months post - aneurysm and this is where she is recovery wise: My mom is now walking on her own (even though we encourage a walker--we had a very scary fall on Mother's Day), she baths by herself, she feeds herself. Mentally - her short term memory has gotten so much better. Her long term memory is phenomonal. But for safety reasons, someone is always with her - she does do some cooking, but she needs supervision. The reason someone needs to be with her for safety reasons is because she gets easily distracted & may either forget she left the stove on, or forget to take a step down or run into something and because she doesn't always think through everything. She may think she can go up a step stool & put things away & not realize she's not 100% able to do the things she used to be able to do. I don't believe she'll ever be back to where she was--my mom was superwoman-she took care of everything & anything all by herself...so I tell her this was God's way of telling her to slow down.

It was a tough road, when she first came home from the rehab hospital, I didn't know if we were going to be able to take care of her--but I dreaded putting her in a nursing home, so we tried and it was tough. At the time, she needed help bathing, eating, going to the bathroom, walking, getting up. We had to thicken all her liquids--which was fine, because she had previously been on a feeding tube...but all she wanted was water and the only way was for it to be thickened--but she finally passed her swallow study. We had to put a diaper on her everynight. It was hard. But eventually we got her the depends that she pulls up on her own to not wearing a diaper at all, she started to bath on her own w/a bench in the tub to now standing on her own, then we didn't have to give her the cues to "chew" & "swallow hard" when she ate.

Karen-now that you mention it - I think her neuro opthamologist did mention 3rd nerve palsey at her first visit, but did not mention it this last visit. Whatever measurements he did initially - the numbers were the same this last visit. (he did measurements w/a prism) Her eye does not open on it own, but if she holds her eyelid open, she can see & she hasn't complained of double vision, but I don't think she keeps that eye open very long. I think she may be benefit from an eye-lift type of surgery--obviously it would not be more complex--but I know it's great that her eyelid has movement.