Sadness


Miss N had her second eye exam today. A year ago I found out she had a severe deficiency in one eye, to the point of having some permanent vision loss. I was a bit floored and did not ask at that appointment why or what that meant.

Today I did.

I am sad because had I caught her problem earlier, we might not have a permanent vision issue.

The doctor explained it like this: If you take a toddler and pin their arm to their chest, the muscles in the arm will atrophy. The eye is a muscle, and it gets exercise by visual stimulation. When the visual stimulation is not coming in accurately, the muscle atrophies. Therapy and glasses can help, but cannot restore the lost vision completely.

I realize this is not a serious issue. She can read, she can color, she can do puzzles, so obviously she can still see. I just wish we had caught it earlier. "Permanent vision loss" sound so, well, permanent and serious. I thought they screened preemies for these types of problems? Somehow she slipped through the cracks until age 4, when I went with my gut and had her checked. When he flashed the letters up on the screen for what I think was 20/40 vision, even with her glasses she could not read them. This made me sad.

He did explain that doctors do not prescribe the full prescription a child needs when they first get glasses. They typically work their way up. So her eyes haven't changed, but he is upping the prescription again. Before it was like 60 percent of what she needs, now it will be more like 90 or 95. That was interesting to me.

Miss N needs therapy for her vision, which will be expensive and cannot be done locally, but what is a parent to do? My kid has to be able to see! I am glad for one thing - she has a lazy eye, but apparently they are steering away from the patches for that problem these days. He said that is like giving an aspirin for a migraine headache. It may help, but it is not enough. So she will not have to wear a patch which I am thankful for.

In two weeks I take M to be checked, because this problem can run in families. I am already dreading this. She is getting calmer every day, but she is not one to sit still in a chair for a long time. Wish me luck!

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