Wednesday 21st April

We arrived at the Wellington Hospital Outpatients Eye Department at 8.30 am to find lots of other people waiting to see the Eye Specialists as well! We sat in the waiting room and began our wait (the Hospital is going through an upgrade but unfortunately the Eye Dept is still in the old part and isn't a very welcoming place!). Finally we were seen by a Registrar who had a quick look at William's eye and then she said she needed to get her boss - we knew then it must be very serious and we were praying that it wasn't a tumor. Dr Maslin came and checked his eye and announced matter of factly "oh yes its PHPV/Microphthalmic Eye" - what was PHPV/Microphthalmic Eye???? Dr Maslin then put some drops into Williams eye and we were told to come back in 30 mins. When we came back they lay William down on a bed and proceeded to get the eye speculum into his eye so they could have a really good look. I couldn't handle this so left the room as William was crying so hard - but Dad stayed with him. Once they checked his eye they told us to wait in a room and did an ultrasound on his eye to check to see if his eye was developed at the back. We were then seen by a Dr Small who spoke to us about this condition called PHPV. I can't quite remember what he said but it went basically something like "he has PHPV which is a very rare condition and means that his eye wasn't developed completely in utero. He probably won't be able to see out of that eye. He also has a microphthalmic eye which means he has a smaller eye than the other and it will always be smaller. He will live a completely normal life though and will know no different." Oh my god on one hand I was happy it wasn't a tumor but on the other hand I just didn't know what to think. Dr Small advised that we should have surgery to give him a chance at getting some sight but the prognosis wasn't all that hopeful. The operation was scheduled for the following Tuesday 27th April.