Amblyopia & A Boy

Just after receiving the new glasses.

Notice anything different?  Our cute little blond-haired boy, now has glasses.  He is three.  He is a boy.  He likes to jump up and down and acts like a crazy loon somedays.  Oh, boy...my boy...this is going to be FUN.

Our pediatrician noticed something amis with Rhett's eyes at his 3 year check up (take your kids to the doctor everyone!).  He referred us to a pediatric opthamologist.  I was perplexed how in the world they would test a 3 year olds eyes.  It's not like he can read a chart!  It was a long and challenging appointment, but a nice doc, and we left with a diagnosis.  We also left with a directive.  

Turns out, they don't use a chart with all of the "E" turned all over the place.  They use pictures of fun stuff like cake, trees, bears, houses etc.  Everything else is exactly the same.   So they plop my kiddo in the big giant chair, turn off all of the lights and cover his left eye with that flat, black spatula and ask him to look at the wall and tell him what he sees.  He looks over at me, back at the wall, over at me...and he says "Mommy, what's on the wall?".  My.  Heart.  Broke.  Into about 1000 pieces.  So, they made the pictures bigger, and bigger and he still could not make out a thing with his right eye.  When they switched over to the left eye, he could rattle off most everything there on the wall.

They dilated Rhett's eyes.  Now THAT was fun.  Not.  Dilation takes a few drops, then sitting for 30 minutes to work and essentially remove your ability to see well.  Do you know what parents do to occupy a kid in a waiting room?  They watch cartoons, read books or in my case, hand my kid my $400 iphone - because that keeps him happy.  However, when your eyes are dilated  you cant see a thing.  Which resulted in my child eventually pitching the iphone, laying flat on his back, under the waiting room chairs, singing and then hollering...then singing and demanding to know why he could not see.  NOT FUN.

Back we go, more tests and lights off, and round glass pieces flashed in front of his eyes.  Oh, it was fun.  Lights come back on, Rhett begins to disassemble that huge, expensive eye doctor chair and gadget doohickey thingy as I attempt to listen to this opthamalogist.  **Insert one smart mom moment, I turned on my iphone voice recorder about a minute into her talking, knowing that even I was so disoriented and distracted at this point that I would not remember anything**

Amblyopia.  Rhett has this.  Pronounced "Am - Blee - O - Pee - ah".  Basically, it's a fancy term for lazy eyes.  We have likely all seen a child in our time with severely crossed eye(s) and this is the same thing.  We caught (Dr. Kleiner did) this early enough, that we can treat it, and hopefully reverse it.  Essentially, it is a developmental issue.  What happens is the eye(s) starts to not work as well, and the brain just decides to shut it off, and concentrate on the eye that does work.  In Rhett's case, his left eye works great and his right eye is lazy.  He is also farsighted.  So, we did not notice anything truly as his left eye has been compensating for the loss.   After thinking about it a few weeks, it did make sense that he was not super interested in coloring, painting or crafts all the time.  I think he did not see everything as well as others, and thus just didn't like it.  

Picking them up at the eye glass store.

What do we do?  Well, we have acquired the glasses (as evidenced here), and he must wear them all of the time.  The first time Rhett put them on, he literally inhaled his breathe and said "I can see Mommy!".  We also have done "patch" therapy daily.  He has to wear a patch over his "good eye" so that the right eye is forced to start working (with glasses, but working).  We are not sure how long we will have to do the patch therapy, and we are hoping to find out more about vision therapy to make his eye stronger.  We don't know yet, but it's likely that he will wear glasses for the rest of his life.  Well, until he can afford Lasik (if it's available).

Cowboys wear glasses too!

Now, let's talk about glasses and a three year old.  At what point do you just let them attempt to look past the snot, fingerprints, smeared food and cat hair all stuck to those little lenses?  My OCD is going to get the best of me trying to keep them clean.  Someone needs to invent self-cleaning glasses.   The frames.  Really?  I am waiting for the first break.  It's only been a couple of weeks and I've caught them on his feet, various parts of his head and body, on the floor, under his toys, stuck in the couch and in the bathroom. However the best came over the weekend at Nanny & Granddads house.  We were visiting and Rhett climbed in the tub Saturday evening and I pick up his glasses (mind you, kids glasses cost JUST AS MUCH as adults!), and I notice that the ends of them are all chewed to bits. I look at Rhett and ask him how his glasses got chewed up?  He proceeds to tell his Daddy, myself AND Nanny how one of the dogs had got ahold of his glasses off his face and they chewed on them.  Then he "chased them" and got them back from them.  After much questioning we figured out the dogs would have eaten them, and those teeth marks sure looked small.  

The next morning, Granddad sat Rhett down and said to him "Now Rhett, I've talked to BD (dog) and he told me that he did not chew your glasses....but if YOU said he did, then I'm going to have to go home and give him a spanking.".  Rhett looked down in his lap, then up at his Granddad and confessed "I don't want him to get in trouble Granddad.  He did not chew them up.  I chewed on them.".  TOTALLY FESSED UP TO GRANDDAD.  

I'm not sure what other adventures may happen upon us.  Let's hope Granddad is able to get the truth out of this kid.

Now, where are those glasses anyway?

Em.

Too bright for Mommy, but Rhett was cool.

Happy Boy!