Not sure if I mentioned this or not but #2 wears glasses. Husband and I noticed his left eye (around nine months old) was turning in when he looked at objects but then would adjust back to normal. I asked several people whether to take him to the optometrist and got both answers: 1) No, don't take him, they'll correct it when he's older and in school 2) You should take him and get it looked at. I waited until he was 18 months old because I sort of felt like I was teetering on the edge of being a neurotic mom. So I finally took both #1 and #2 to the optometrist to get their eyes checked out. #1 passed (even though it's really only a visual exam with parental input on how they were doing) and #2, not so much. Turns out lazy eyes are EXTREMELY important that need to be checked out and corrected ASAP.
The doc said many people wait until their child is in school for correction but by then it is too late to correct that eye, it will be bad FOREVER. You child will be stuck with 1200 vision in that eye FOREVER. There is a limited amount of time that the brain has to relearn how to see at 20/20 vision and once that time frame is passed, you can't get it back. SO SO SO glad we took him in. They ordered him some "cute" Winnie the poo frames which were very cute, but unfortunately too small and we had to upgrade to a larger, read, more expensive pair. (Sorry folks, no pics of his first frames, although I do have a video where they make an appearance.) Here's the thing about children's glasses, even though they are tiny they still cost as much as adult frames and they are no less prone to breaking or getting scratched. Ugh. The doc said for him to wear the glasses as much as possible. Do you know how hard it is to get an 18 month old to wear glasses and not break them? I do. It's tough. And remember I was six months pregnant at this point chasing him around, trying to get him to both wear them and not break them.
#2's second pair of glasses. He LOVED picking
dandelions this summer and he'd store them in
his firetruck.
In April I took him back for a recheck and the doc very kindly said he only saw "mild improvement." The goal for the next four months was to get him to wear his glasses AT LEAST six hours a day AND WEAR A PATCH for an hour (or more) a day. I totally looked at him and asked if he was crazy. Did he not see that I was three days from my due date? Not only did he have to wear his glasses more but I also had to convince him to keep a patch on as well?!?! Crap. To give the doc credit he really is a nice guy who told me he understood he was expecting the impossible out of me. I do like the guy. He has two sons and is great with our kids. I asked if he would be able to measure how good of a mother I am based on how well his follow up appointment in August would be, and with a smile and go natured laugh said yes. And off I went with #2 out the door with glass patches in my pocket.
It took #2 all of one day to realize that if he bent his head down he could look over his glasses, thus defeating the purpose of the patch. The next step, getting a "sticker" patch for his eye, featured here:
The thing about the patch is, well, to put it blatantly, is it makes him sort of blind. The patch goes on his good eye thereby forcing his bad to do all of the work. He has a pretty strong prescription for the bad eye that guesstimates the amount of correction. He hates the patch. He hates it so much that he would rather sit in timeout for forever. Luckily though once on he'll leave it on. I'd say we've had pretty good luck (read me). Over the past four months he has consistently worn the patch 70% of the days, usually for two hours (the longer the better). He also keeps his glasses on for the majority of the day; exceptions, car rides, when he in angry, or they fall off one ear and we're not around to fix it.
Don't let the picture above fool you. These glasses have taken a beating. The original pair were bent to hell and he had gnawed off the latex bridge piece more times then I care to remember. Additionally he broke off each ear piece and the end result was new frames. Thankfully they have a warranty. They have also gotten lost outside. One time my mom's dog found them and used them as a chew toy so there are nice little indentations on one lens.
This brings us to our latest recheck. Turns out I am a fabulous mom who cares greatly about #2's future eyesight (and possible his future) because I passed, err, he passed with flying colors. There was more improvement then was expected so I did my part, and #2 kind of did his. The doc is changing his prescription so he'll get new scratch and bite mark free lenses in two weeks. He still needs to wear the patch everyday but thankfully we are heading in the right direction. I must admit I was pretty nervous. "We" even did so well that we won't be back for six months when usually he'd want to see us in three!
The end goal is that by seven or eight years old he will have restored his vision to 20/20 and won't need glasses anymore. Let's up everything keeps going smoothly for the next five or six years!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment