Austin

Dear family,


A lot has happened in the last 15 hours. We discovered that Austin's retina has paritally detached and he will be having surgery Friday (Jan 15) @ 7:30 am. A detached retina is very serious! Unfortunately for Austin, he only has one eye that the brain uses and one eye that the brain has turned "off." The detached retina is in the eye he uses. So you can understand how frightening this is for him to imagine any permanent damage to the eye he uses. The surgeon said this can happen to people who are extremely nearsighted, which he is. And he said it has probably been "tearing" for many months, if not years. Austin's vision became blurry in the last few days...which prompted the examination.

The same "tearing" is going to happen in his other eye (the one the brain turned off.) So they will also do a laser surgery on that eye...to seal it off so it won't tear.

Complications: After surgery, the retina could detach again, even several times, and they would keep doing the surgery over and over, hoping it will stay in place. After healing, a cataract could form on his eye which would have to be removed. Finally, his vision, even after reattaching the retina could remain blurry.

Our family is going to fast tomorrow, Thursday. Please pray for Austin! He is frightened, mostly because he only has one working eye and now it is not working. Please pray for the surgery to go well and for the retina to STAY ATTACHED! Please pray for his vision to improve upon healing (it may take a long time). And that he'll be spared a cataract surgery as well as additional surgeries.

Please add his name to your temple prayer rolls. Of course he's been administered to.

I sure love you each one. I know you are stalwart, faithful, temple-going people and your prayers and faith will make a difference! Your prayers and faith made all the difference in my outcome last summer. Thanks for your love and support!

Laurie and Joel

PS. If I've left anyone out of this email, it was not on purpose. I don't have everyone's email address. Please forward to other family members if you'd like.