Surgeries

I have had over 60 + surgeries in my 22 years of life.

i know, seems a lot right? let me break it down. well first... let me explain what peters is

straight Peter's Anomaly is when a baby is born with the iris and cornea are fused together.
the eyes can vary, from mild, to sever. (Just like everything else). not one Peter's kid/adult is the same, i like to say that anyone with Peter's is like a snowflake, because everyone is beautiful in their own way.

Younger Years

i had an experimental surgery at the time on both of my eyes. this was when i was 2 years old. what was done was that they had pealed my iris and cornea away from each other. it worked in my left eye, and not so well in my right. My right eye then became very opaque, and was a light blue, but it was still a healthy eye with scar tissue over it from the surgery.

Middle School/High school (June 21st, 2004 -- 2009)

in between my 6th and 7th grade summer i had gotten my first eye surgery in a while. it was a cornea transplant, and a shunt implant. The shunt implant was added 2 months before the surgery date. the story behind that was that i had gone with my sister to her glaucoma specialist appointment, and had gotten into the observation chair. little did i know that the little pen (tono Pen) would read my pressure in my eye as being higher than what it is supposed to be. the Doctor had wanted to go in while i was getting my cornea transplant to put in the shunt to properly drain the fluid, to get a normal pressure. since he had wanted to go into surgery right away, the doctor did not treat me with drops first, like he was supposed to do. when i had gotten my first surgery, the weird thing that i can remember is that i could not open my other eye (the "good" eye that did not get any surgery), i remember trying to eat my breakfast, and i could not see anything. my first surgery was just the start of a long road of surgeries. Just to let you know, I did not have glaucoma, while my cornea specialist had gone in and preformed a 5 and a half hour long surgery to clean up everything (remove shunt, remove gas bubble and everything else) the doctor had verbally told my parents that he had a one up on the glaucoma specialist, and said that i do not have glaucoma at all. because of this, my eye did not like the shunt, so it got itself exposed, and the doctor had moved it all over my eye before actually taking it out, this was going in and out of surgery about 6 to 8 times each surgery was about 2 weeks from each other. this had all happened within the summer time period. than when it in the "right" spot, it had drained to much, and had caused my retina to detach, cornea to fail, and my eye became shrunken. i have had 4 detached retinas, I'm on my 4th right now. i had had 4 cornea transplants, the last one had failed, and nothing can be done to make it healthy eye. it is a very unhealthy eye, and the only thing that can be done right now is remove my eye.. which is not happening.

The After Effects

my eye is shrunken and is now much more of a physical handicap. (I hate using that word...) it does not hold me back from most things. it is an unhealthy eye, and now i am thinking about getting a scalaral shell to put over my very sick eye. this all could have been prevented by just someone saying it was not a good idea, but who knoew what would have happened. I did not know I would end up like this in the end. if anything, this had made me a lot stronger.

although, my eyes are physical, going through all those surgeries as a young girl has made me more protective of my own feelings and be more on guard of things that might hurt me. I do get anxiety, whenever I feel like I can't control it though, I meditate. it helps me calm down. I do get treated like a little girl sometimes, and it bothers me. sometimes I cannot control it, others? I am vocal about being hurt, and that is what has made me, being vocal, speaking up. being my own advocate in college has gotten me to graduation. this is a skill that someone has to learn, it does not just happen. in high school I wasn't as vocal as I am now, and I notice the change from then till now.

Till next time