He has Amblyopia

Yesterday was D's eye exam. We had noticed his right deviating just slightly at times when he was looking at us from across the room or when he was really tired. During his exam, while he was identifying the shapes (they use a shape chart for younger patients instead of letters) I noticed he would turn his head and focus with his left eye. The doctor patched each eye to test them separately and he struggled through it with the right eye. His left eye is much stronger. I am just thankful we are catching this early. If we hadn't noticed that right eye straying we may have not found out his vision was deteriorating until he was older. So, he's getting glasses (the same exact kind that Ry has) and will patch his left eye for two hours a day to strengthen the vision in his right eye. He will also do thirty minutes of vision therapy (monocular performance therapy) while patching. Basically anything that requires fine motor skills and lots of focus. (Ry is already doing this as part of his therapy.) To quote the handout I received:

Goal: Increase visual performance in each eye, especially the amblyopic (lazy) eye. Stress the use of the amblyopic (poorer seeing eye).... The smaller or more refined the task the better. The goal in all procedures is equal performance with either eye.

 A couple of tasks will be: stringing beads, spearing raisins with a toothpick (I use small marshmallows, too), pick up items with tweezers, coloring within the lines, filling in the letter 'O' in a magazine or newspaper.

Both Ry and D have a "lazy eye" which often goes unnoticed until children are in school. Ry also has a strabismic eye (eye turn) which is related to the eye muscle. He gets a couple of different exercises to work on that. You can read more about the differences and definitions of Amblyopia and Stabismus.

I don't feel like there is enough awareness about the importance of a vision exam in young children. Our pediatrician did a eye exam with D at his 4 year check up and unfortunately I was not able to accompany him since Ry was also getting a checkup at the same time. The nurse took him back and then returned pretty quickly to say that he failed the exam because he said he couldn't see anything. It's actually highly recommended to have infants screened by an optometrist before they are a year old. Our eye doc will do this screening for free (if the child is less than a year old).

So, I'm just going to encourage you to ask your pediatrician if they suggest an eye exam for your baby... and then go see an optometrist anyway.

You can visit our doctors website here.

Yesterday

I had to leave early yesterday morning to take Ry to his optometry checkup which went wonderfully. His doc was happy and also impressed with his ability to become bored so fast. Basically he sits in a big chair (very similar to a dentists chair) telling us which object he sees on the TV screen while the doc irritates him by asking him which shape he sees on the TV screen while she sticks a bunch of different lenses and stuff in front of his eyes. Four objects-house, square, apple, circle- for at least thirty minutes. He's three. Eventually he starts saying, "Ugh, I already told you! It's a house!" complete with dramatic sigh and slumping in the chair. His doc is awesome though and totally gets that after about five minutes he is just bored out of his mind. Which is why she laughed when he told her to open her drawer (where she keeps a couple of toys and lots of lenses and eye doctoring things) and let him have a toy. He picked out the Elmo on roller skates. His favorite and then proceeded to stuff it in his pocket while she was out of the room adjusting his glasses. (Of course I was not about to let him actually get away that.) She came back in and he pulled Elmo out of his pocket and she acted really surprised that Elmo was hiding... and then let him pick a toy out of the treasure box. Pretty good appointment, especially when I was prepared to dish out a bunch of money and it ended up being only $40. Even better.

Then I returned to my mom's house (she was watching the other two trouble makers) and Rose fell asleep before I could leave so I ended up staying there until 5. So... my house revolted while I was away, because I didn't listen to my own advice and clean everything before I left. I have a sink full of dirty dishes, an enormous pile of clothes to sort and wash, at least 13 pairs of shoes to trip over and various other mundane things to tend to. I'm hoping to be back later (no promises) and be way more exciting and more caffeinated. Being caffeinated takes things to a whole new level, ya know.

Nothing Happened and Ry is 3!

That's a lie. Things did happen yesterday. The first significant thing has to do with Ry Guy and glasses. Then there is the other significant thing: NO rain.

For a couple months we have noticed something "off" with Ry's vision. We finally wrangled some money to see the eye doctor and (I was right) he needs glasses. He has what is called Strabismus or crossed eyes. His left eye muscles haven't developed properly and he also needs prescription lenses. I'm just really happy that this is a correctable problem. We get to start some eye exercises to increase his muscle strength looking to his left with his left eye. He picked blue glasses and looked super adorable in them at the doctor's office. Ry did amazing with the shape chart and would tell the doc, "That's another circle...that's a square...a heart...that's a house...I already told you, that's a square!" It got pretty boring for him but he stayed with us and didn't loose focus. Then we had to dilate his eyes. This was definitely the worse part. He hated getting the drops in his eyes, but did get a new car out of the treasure box for being a good sport. While we were finding him glasses he ddecided he was done and wouldn't look at me or the lady helping pick out his glasses. I got three pair on him before he went into "Let's get outta here" mode. (It had been 2 hours and past nap time.) I vetoed the Harry Potter glasses (I don't know what the lady was thinking when she put those on him), tried to have him try on a rectangular type which I didn't really see because at that point he was laying on the floor, so I choose the squarish frames that I did see on him for like 3 seconds. Overall, my 2 year and 364 day old son stayed on ridiculously good behavior for me. (Today is his 3rd birthday! We are partying Saturday although he is getting a gift tonight and I put candles on his cinnamon rolls this morning and sang Happy Birthday to him.)

As for the significant rain, which we desperately need, there was none. We have been under 2 tornado watches (Monday and Tuesday) with a whopping 20% chance of rain. In case I failed to mention it we live in Texas and are in an Exceptional Drought (which is the worst possible). I'm sure if you have watched the news (even national news) you probably have heard about all the terrible wild fires in Texas. We seriously need rain, but apparently all we can get is lots of wind (bad, bad, bad!) and tornadoes. Last night I was super hopeful because I saw this incredible cloud coming across the sky and it totally let me down. 

This cloud was moving south to north with the sunset

behind it. 

This was coming straight over our house moving the same direction but higher in the atmosphere. 

Nothing happened.

Even though I packed the diaper bag in case we needed to get to our storm shelter. (Which is just another house out here, only it has a slab foundation and is very sturdy.)

That was that. Now I need to get my list ready and head to the grocery store to pick up a few things. 

Happy Birthday Ry-Guy. Love you always and forever, 

Mama