Beginning in Kindergarten, Hunter’s Eye has Swelled Three Times Due to Lymphangioma

Hunter was a normal kindergarten student in 2006, except for the one Saturday morning that he woke up with his eye swelling.

We had taken him skating the day before, and so with childhood mishaps being so frequent in young kids, we just didn’t think much of it. But by that next Monday morning, it had swelled up so badly it looked like there was a knot the size of a marshmallow above his eye, pushing his eye out of its socket.

Right away, we went to his pediatrician, and he directed us straight to the Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, AL. He had surgery the very next day and 13 cc’s of fluid were drained out from behind his eye. This seemed to have worked and stopped the clogged vessels from swelling.

Six years later in October 2012, his eye had started slowly swelling over a weeklong period, and it was much worse than the last time. He had surgery again on November 1st, and after 18 cc’s of fluid were removed, in three days it had swelled up badly again. So on December 4th we had one more surgery before we started exploring other options.

This time it seemed to have worked: 24 cc’s of fluid has been removed and his eye looks normal, having sunk back into his head like it was supposed to. We are two months out of this surgery, with no signs of it returning right away. We do not know when it will be back, so we are taking a “wait and see” approach as there is no known cure (for Lymphangioma).

Right now he seems to be a quite healthy 11-year-old. And we are very blessed.