Thursday morning of her spring break, she woke up complaining that her eye hurt. A complaint like this isn't uncommon for her (I think she dreams things and then wakes up thinking they're real), and she only mentioned it once, so I didn't investigate. Bad mommy!
Turns out sharing washcloths with a sick kid is bad (JOE!). Maddie caught conjunctivitis from Ben's cold. Ugh! A trip to the pediatrician, eye drops, antibiotics, and 10 days later she was good as new.
The next eye problem is much more serious, unfortunately.
Take a look at the picture above. See Maddie's left eye? How it crosses? If anyone ever tells you "This is a phase. She'll grow out of it," they don't know what they're talking about!! It is a serious issue. I learned this the hard way by listening to the wrong people. Ugh ugh ugh.
At Maddie's 4 yr. check up the pediatrician was concerned with her eye crossing. So he referred us to a Pediatric Opthamologist. The Opthamologist was fantastic. They did all kinds of eye tests with Maddie (very similar to the ones adults do, just at the kid level). It was determined that Maddie has "Strabismus."Strabismus is any condition in which the eyes are not parallel. In Maddie's case, her left eye crosses. While her eyes have the same vision, for some reason, her left crosses. Because of her young age, her brain cannot understand the double vision she is seeing is wrong and correct it. If left unchecked, this condition would not be reversible after the age of 6 or 7. Her right eye would become stronger and her left eye weaker. Basically, she would be blind in her left eye and would cross it most, if not all the time.
The current result is that Maddie now has glasses. We have another appointment in a month to see how the prescription is going. I have a feeling that it will be changed to a bifocal. The doctor felt she probably needed them, but wanted to give her eyes the chance to correct without it first. IF her eyes still cross even with glasses, she will have to have surgery on her eye. Even after that, she'll still wear glasses though. It's fairly routine, but the idea of cutting my child's eye open scares the heck out of me! One step at a time, though.
It's been really difficult to get a picture of her! I think she likes them a lot, but she's a bit embarrassed by them too. And she's 4. With the attitude of a 12 year old. Haha! So this is about as good of a picture as I could get.
She hasn't had any problems with not wanting to wear them. The Doctor told us that kids like wearing the glasses because they can tell they see better immediately. I think she's right. And it never hurts to have everyone comment on them :) As a mommy it's hard to see your little girl have to go through something like this. Thoughts of name-calling and riding the short bus have gone through my head several times in the last few weeks. But times have changed. And I think the fact that she has them so young will help with how kids react to her. Either way, she doesn't have a choice, and we will deal with bullies when we get there.
4 comments:
She is adorable! Those 4 eyes jokes are so old, but kids can be cruel. I hope she doesn't have to go through that. I didn't get glasses until 8 so it was a little harder since kids knew me without them first. Since she's just starting school hopeful it will be easier.
Oh BTW I love the blog makeover...super cute!
My brother had the same problem when he was young. The ophthalmologist gave him a pair of glasses (plain prescription - no problem there) with each of the lenses polarized differently. And he gave us a screen that we placed in front of the TV which had the left half polarized differently than the right half. The net result? Each of his eyes could only see 1/2 (left, right) of the TV picture. Since the dominant eye could only see half of the picture, the information from the other eye could not be dismissed by the brain - and since it was out of alignment, the brain pulled it together. For the rest of us, without the glasses, there was no effect.
It was a great idea, and it solved his problem completely - tho I don't remember how long we had that screen in front of the TV.
She's a cutie! I know it's scary but she'll be just fine. Ryan and Jared each had 1 eye surgery and I had 2 and we were all under 4 years old. Good times.
Well I'm sorry to hear that you all had experience this, but I'm praying that all will go well and that Maddie won't need surgery.
Either way the good Lord knows all about it & He will keep good care of you all.
Maddie looks so cute and in case you don't know glasses are an accessory these days (like braces) most kids love them.
Where I work some kids will even wear over the counter glasses to look fashionable.
Hannah got her first pair at age eight. She put them on & walked out into the Mall from the vision place & said, "I can see all the way down there". She has never gone w/o them by choice. She is so happy to see better.
Thanks for sharing this. I saw that she had glasses, but I didn't know if I should make a big deal out of it.
Take care,
Nannette
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