Disappointing Trip to the Eye Doctor

Yesterday I took Isaac (age 8), Angela (age 4), and Sarah (age 9 months) to the ophthalmologist.  (As an aside, that is a difficult word, ophthalmologist.  I am not sure I am spelling it right even after seeing spell check correct it in Microsoft Word about a dozen times. Fancy eye doctor.  That's who we saw.)

Ok, so Isaac was being checked to see how much is left eye has improved. He has amblyopia, which means one eye is not connecting to the brain well.  His right eye has perfect vision, and his left eye does not.  At some point, his brain decided that the information from his left eye was so bad that the data was useless, and the brain stopped "seeing" through the left eye.

The solution has been to patch his right eye 6 to 8 hours a day.  We've been diligent for 4 months now to patch at least 6 hours almost every day.  Isaac has handled it like a trooper.

2 months ago, the results were phenomenal.  He had improved far more than the eye doctor hoped.  So I was excited to see the results yesterday.  But they were disappointing.  He improved MAYBE one line on the eye chart but even that is not a sure thing. He didn't really get much better.  The doctor suggested that he start working on smaller type books and activities to work his eye.  I've been trying to do that by giving him lots of comics and graphic novels with small type, but we'll try  maze books next.

Angela was fine. She has bilateral amblyopia, which I don't completely understand. She is very farsighted in both eyes and is wearing glasses now. I know she sees much better and is enjoying some activities that she previously disdained.  Her eye results were good yesterday.

And then there is Sarah.  Sarah, sadly, combines the worst of both worlds.  She is extremely far sighted, and one eye is worse than the other.  That puts her at risk for getting crossed eyes and she needs glasses.  Soon.  As a baby.

Kevin and I were both upset yesterday that our sweet little person has this eye problem.  But I'm doing better with it today.  After our appointment yesterday, I remembered a close family member who had something similar as an infant and consulted my mother.  Yep, it was very similar, with crossing eyes and extreme farsightedness as a baby.  So we do have a family history.  It can be controlled and I am SO thankful we caught it now. I suspect she would not have been able to learn letters or numbers well if we didn't know she couldn't see well and we DO know it.

Pretty soon, she'll have glasses!