Gratefulness.

Gratefulness.

Today was a follow up appointment for our 3 1/2 year old sons vision 
with is new prescription of glasses.  


He has category 3 vision of 20/250 with out glasses and -8 & -9 in each of his eyes.  With glasses they discovered during this visit that with his new glasses being adapted to have made his eyes now 20/150.  They said with out glasses he can only see things from one inch away..clearly since his nose literally touches the iPad or iPhone to play games..educational apps and such..to even see a thing even with squinting and tilting his head downwards and looking hard upwards with a severe squint.  He is also using his glasses to look upwards with less of a squint which is a good sign the neuro-opthomologist mentioned to us.  With them, he can see things a bit better up to 10 feet away but not as good as he can up close.

We discussed Retina detachment.
Word of advice from her, was to take pictures with flash of him every 2 weeks to monitor his Retina health.  Great info that other moms on support pages are also finding reassurance in knowing this for their own or their children's vision health.  A way to not feel as helpless at this spontaneous possibility, but a bit potentially proactive..perhaps.  With this said, she said to not use red eye reduction in a photo, but to turn that feature off with flash to see if his eyes bounce back with white, dark, no light, or white light vs. red lights.  If that is the case, to get him in to be seen ASAP.  That means something is near detaching if not already detached.  The Retina has lots to do with light, so with red bouncing off of both eyes that is a great sign of health in his Retina's still.  In the case of an emergency with him saying he see's 'bugs' or 'dots' or 'dark' or 'lights too bright' randomly in one or both eyes to get him ASAP to the ER.  This is time sensitive due to a Retina detachment will need to be repaired within 1/2 hour otherwise it's as she said creates a death to the eye entirely.  There's no way to correct it beyond that point.  At this time, no correction beyond that point..at all.

Extreme light sensitivity is still baffling her.
Within the Retina are cones & rods that help manage light within the vision.  She is interested in doing a procedure which will tell us the amount of cones vs. rods or visa versa.  The only thing she says is that if this is the case it'd influence it no matter what, and given he can still see well in light situations from even that 1-3" close up tells her that this might not be what's going on.  A new specialist has been added to the equation at this time...a Retina Specialist.  For which is booked potentially 3-5 months in advance at this point, as well as even the procedure to take place will additionally take place at Casey Eye Institute within 2-3 months in advance since they're so far booked up.  Yes, we will be going forward with this.  Which means, he will be placed under anesthesia again, given that dopamine [spelling?] drug as the technicians joked with us about being [I'm sure trying to help calm our nerves] as being the actual correct dose of this drug that Michael Jackson had.  They even told us that MJ had like 10 gallons of it in his system when he was found dead which they even think in their professional opinions that he was murdered, where as you typically give some one around a few ounces of it depending upon their weight.  Yikes!  Gallons vs. ounces?  It made him very loopy last time and giggly like he was on narcotics.  Thankfully as he gets older there isn't going to be a need of this but just the normal means of putting him asleep.

Gratefulness. 
Words can't express how long I've been waiting to tell our Neuro-opthomologist a BIG thank you!  We've always known something more was going on.  Despite focusing on his learning where as I'd spend extended hours focusing on teaching him his letters from 1" away..he could point out numbers and letters by the age of 15 months.  Because of this, dr's never took all the dots that they should of connected together seriously.  As they're always seeking "learning difficulty problems" for which he was progressing above average of infants his age, due to some abnormal mama-intuititive catering from me by following my intuition.  Now, he's even counting things and starting basic addition like 3+1=4.  Even simple words like t-h-e and e-n-d, etc. But words can't even express that moment I was able to say to this vision Dr's...THANK YOU!  Even a simple diagnosis is answers and by her help who knows how long it'd take or even ever take to figure out what genetic situation he had going on with him right now!  To genuinely extended that appreciation to her and allow her to be rewarded for what a great eye Dr. she is meant the world to me, and you could see her even tear up from it to.  THAT is the sign of an amazing specialist, eye Dr.!  Give this woman a medal.  Give her a raise.  When others have been telling us they don't want to place glasses on him, don't want kids to wear glasses because we'll be in every week to get new ones, that it's just his 'quirk' that he squints, that he's above his learning curve so nothing else is wrong....guess again.  Listen to the parents, listen to the child, and don't ignore those intuitions and education.  As they say, you might be seeing the horse with those individual problems but there are zebra's like my son out there to!  Please, connect those dots to find the zebra's before it's too late!  We are all so immensely grateful for her help this. <3