What her eye looks like

Now that we've got the stitch out and her eye is used to opening up again we took a couple of pictures to show you what it looks like. The eye looks like it's bulging, but that's just the clear plastic conformer that you're looking at. I must admit I'd panicked a bit myself when I saw it as any pictures I'd seen of conformers before were white. And the clear one just makes it look like the mucous membrane is really bulging. I worried that the conformer was lost and that the eye was inflamed. A quick call to Dr. G. remedied that little crisis though.

Some of you are going to be really sad looking at these pictures, but don't be. I sat Gracie up at the mirror and we looked at her eye together and discussed it. Once again we talked about why her eye needed to be removed. She knows her eye was sick and that if we didn't remove it then her entire body would get very very sick. She knows it, and she's perfectly fine with it. It doesn't make her sad at all. She doesn't think it looks scary. While we were discussing it I told her that her eye looks really neat. She agrees. Come on, everyone has two eyes, it takes someone special to have just one! She's even got two cousins that now think having a fake eye would be the coolest thing ever. She just entirely trusts us (James and I) and knows we wouldn't do anything to hurt her. Watching her deal with this reminds me of why the Saviour says we need to be as a little child. She has 100% faith in James and I and in our decisions regarding her. Even when she's been in pain she always tells James and I how much she loves us and never holds anything we've put her through against us. It's all been for her own good and we've done it out of nothing but love for our little girl. I've learned so much in the past year from watching her and our other children. Perhaps someday I'll have to make a separate blog just for sharing those lessons. But that will have to wait for another day.

Thank you for your love, support and prayers. If you're looking for something to pray for in regards to Gracie, pray that she starts accepting her eye ointment more easily. Right now it's a fight every morning and every night. But she needs to have this ointment for a long time still. It would make it much easier on herself if she'd just relax and let us do it. It doesn't hurt. It should be rather soothing. But she's had so much done to her eyes in the past year that she doesn't like to let anyone near them. It should make getting her prosthesis fitted fun, as they have to actually take a mold of the eye socket. Hopefully she'll soon realize that it doesn't hurt and it really isn't a big deal.

Stephanie