We visited the Moran Eye Center in Salt Lake City yesterday for an eye appointment for our daughter, Wendy.  Wendy has had 2 detached retinas. One occured when she was in a group home in Texas where she lived for 4 years. When we brought her to Wyoming to live with us again, it was too late to fix her left eye (after too long a time, even if the retina is repaired, it will no longer reconnect and communicate with the brain).  That eye had formed a cataract and no one knew the retina was detached until the surgeon found it when he removed the cataract to put in a lense.

  Not more than a month later, we found her stumbling around the house one morning and took her to the doctor here in Wyoming. He sent us immediately to Salt Lake (University of Utah Moran Eye Center) and they did surgery that day on her retina. It also had a giant tear in it. She said she fell down in her room against her night stand. She had to lay face down for 3 weeks for the retina to heal properly. This was soooo stressful because it is hard to get Wendy to even sit still, but we did it, mostly due to my husband's patience and loving care while I had to teach at 2 shows.  After surgery, that eye formed a cataract (we knew that would happen). So they did cataract surgery 6 months later and put in a lense for the best vision they could give her.

  Now, the lense has slipped (probably due to her hitting her face when she has occasional tamtrums). The doctor isn't sure what he will do. He will call us later this week after consutations with several other doctors. If they can't save that eye, she will be blind.

  I would sure appreciate all your prayers in our behalf. The thoughts of poor little Wendy living in darkness is almost more than I can bear. There are also additional risks in surgery for people with William's Syndrome, even though she has had 2 open heart surgeries. We have been lucky and feel very blessed to have Wendy. She makes life real for us and keeps our feet on the ground. When people get caught up in the pettiness of life, we always have Wendy to remind us what's really important.

I called my daughter, Wendy, tonight and she told me that one of the 17 cows that we have on our property from our friends (just to eat the field down) is going to have a baby calf. She is so excited about that. Wendy has William's syndrome, so she is mentally disabled. She loves animals and UPS, in fact she is very fixated on UPS. She is 41 years old, but gets along really well with kids about 8 years old. She loves to read, do workbooks, play her DS and other activities that she seems to make up. She lives at home with us. She is there now with my youngest daughter, Tiffany, and my son-in-law, Todd. She gets along well with them although she can also have outbursts occasionally that are very stressful, especially to the people around her and younger children. She loves to have a firm schedule and if anything changes, she just can't handle it.