My dear friend Izzy was hit in the eye with a roman candle on July 3. She began the long journey of specialists in Topeka and Kansas City, surgeries, treatments and medications to save her eye. Izzy is preparing for stem cell transplant surgery October 16. She will have surgery to restate the mobility of her eyelid after that and will have cornea transplants the rest of her life. Izzy’s medications this month alone were over $600. Both Natalie and Izzy work jobs for minimum wage. Below is the latest update from Natalie. On October 16 Izzy goes in and has a stem cell transplant surgery. They will take a piece of her stem cells from the right eye and insert it into the left eye. Think of a round clock with the twelve hours, they will take only one hour out of the clock, and cut that one hour into many little pieces. Once those stem cell pieces are glued in place they will cover it with a big amniotic membrane that gets glued over the eye, followed by a contact that covers everything. Majority of Izzy’s eye will be covered. There is a 75% chance that this works. If the transplant gets rejected then there are other steps we could take. Here are a couple of other options that we could move forward with. One is having a donors stem cell, and the other is a stem cell from a cadaver. This is a pretty invasive procedure that she will have to go through. The doctors will put a needle into the top of her eye to block her nerve, this will stop the eye from moving during the operation, along with blocking her vision. They also have to remove the scarring from the initial injury and remove the blood vessels that have started to grow over the cornea. She was informed that she will have some bleeding occur. Izzy will be out of work for a minimum of one week, her right eye will have a small scar from the removal of stem cells and she will have some blurry vision for about a week. During this time all medications will remain the same along with adding the new serums to her daily medication regime. Please continue keeping her in your prayers! She has been so strong throughout all of this and has been overcoming so much. Thank you to all of you for the wonderful support, care, and encouragement shown! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions for us. We would like to ask that you continue sharing the LFEBridge and help raising support for donations.
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