About

Here is a little about Hailey so you can get to know her better.  Hailey was born 3 months early and weighed only 1 pound 3 ounces (if you can imagine, she could fit in the palm of your hand). She had very premature lungs amongst other problems and spent the first year of her life in the hospital with many many ups and downs.   When she was one year old and while still in the hospital she developed pneumonia in which she got very ill and had a huge setback.  That, combined with her extreme prematurity caused some developmental delays.  She came home to us at after 381 days in the hospital.  

Hailey is now in Grade 6 at GS Lakie School and has full time assistance.  She is a very active, happy and loveable little girl.  She is able to walk and even run!  She is not very verbal but has a vocabulary of about 25 words but understands a lot more than you think.   Hailey has a gastrostomy tube and is fed primarily through that.  She does eat a little orally and is making progress but finds it hard to drink.  Hailey loves listening to music, swimming, playing with her siblings and phone calls with her family whenever she can.

Hailey is visually and hearing impaired.   She is very far sighted and we are told that everything appears blurry to her.  Because of her poor vision she has trouble looking at books and generalized learning is difficult. She also has poor depth perception and so she is very nervous going up and down stairs (she can't go up and down by herself) and surface changes; for example from carpet to linoleum she gets very nervous crossing it because she can't tell the level difference. The doctors have tried many things to help her eyesight and have not been successful. We have tried glasses since she was 4 years old, but she absolutely will not keep them on her face because she has an aversion to anything on her face and her head.  This mostly stems from her prematurity and having so many negative experiences as a premature baby.   We were referred to Dr. Astelle, the ophthalmologist at the Alberta Children’s Hospital and he felt like she was an excellent candidate for PRK surgery which is similar to Lasik surgery in adults.  He said it could improve her vision immensely, and in turn her depth perception and future learning.  We think with improved eyesight, it could help her speech, her communication and lessen some of her daily frustrations.

Hailey was on the wait list for the surgery at the Children’s Hospital and one month before the surgery, the Alberta Government cancelled the surgeries. Their reasoning being there was not enough research on PRK on kids.  We were very disappointed.   Dr. Astelle states that the surgery is very safe and effective and he has performed that surgery on over 450 kids with no problems and had been doing the surgery for over 15 years.  He told us he thinks that the government just doesn’t want to pay for it anymore.  His next option was to try intraocular lenses on her eyes but the government also nixed that surgery.  

As you can imagine we felt very helpless that we could not do anything to improve her eyesight and in turn her quality of life.  Dr. Astelle referred us to Dr. Paycee in Houston Texas who is performing PRK at the Texas Children's Hospital.   PRK is similar to Lasik, but as I understand it that instead of cutting the cornea they ablate the cornea and reshape it.  And of course being a child she would have to be anesthetized.  Dr. Astelle has sent down information and we have talked with her team in Houston and Hailey qualifies and is a great candidate for the surgery. 

 We feel very strongly that this is something that she could benefit from and that we have to give her every chance we can to improve her vision and quality of life.