I’m not sure what I expected to hear (or not hear) this morning at Owen’s eye appointment. We know there is still an issue with his eyes, but we were hopeful that the doctor would use any of the following words: normal, fine, improving, not bad or looking good.
Deep down I knew better, but was still hopeful none-the-less. Unfortunately we didn’t really hear any of those words this morning.
Owen has a condition called Strabismus which basically means his eyes cross. They measure his eyes with a prism test. Prior to surgery the eye crossing was very obvious and was happening very consistently all day long. If you look at the photo on this link you will see the prism testing tool. You can see how they are measuring that person’s eyes at one of the notches very high on the tool. Each of those lines moving down that tool shows more severity. The stronger the prism that is required to align the eyes, the greater the eye turn.
When Owen was originally being tested last fall he was the second or third from the bottom. That was consider severe and past the point of glasses being able to correct his condition. This is why we needed to do eye muscle surgery.
Today as they were testing him they started at about the second section from the top which made me feel good. However, the doctor had to keep moving it down in order to align Owen’s eyes. With each notch he moved down, I felt my stomach turn. I just wanted him to stop moving down the prism tool. Owen is now at about the half way mark on that tool. He’s come a long way from the bottom, but still not where he needs to be.
It’s not horrible. But it’s also not great. Obviously after surgery we wanted it to be corrected and for this to no longer be an issue for Owen. For the last 6 weeks since our last appointment we have been doing alternate eye patching therapy. Owen has gotten used to it, but certainly doesn’t like doing it. And Ryan? Well, Ryan loves that Owen has to have a patch because it usually means that they both get a jelly bean when Owen gets his patch on.
Today, Dr. Lipsky said we could stop patching for the next four weeks. He wants to follow back up with Owen in 4 weeks and see what his eyes have done on their own during this time. And he said he would monitor him and determine next steps at that point. He also wants to dilate his eyes and check a few other things out.
I almost didn’t want to ask the question, but I did “What next steps are you thinking? Glasses? Or another eye surgery?”
He said that is what he’ll start to determine next time. I didn’t leave with a warm fuzzy feeling today that’s for sure. I have a feeling there will be more surgery in our semi-near future. I do have to say that it’s a good thing I really like Thomas Pediatric Eye Group. They have my complete trust and I know they are doing everything they can to fix O-wee’s eyes. There is no doubt in my mind that Dr. Lipsky is the best!
And then the best part of the whole visit? Owen’s fabulous temper tantrum as we were walking out! He screamed at the top of his lungs, cried and then attempted (actually succeeded) to hit me several times as I was carrying him out with my purse, a diaper bag, snacks and our paper work in other hand. There was nothing I could do to stop the hitting since both of my hands were completely full (one with a squirming, screaming toddler). It was awesome. Oh how I wished daddy hadn’t left so quickly to jump on a conference call…..
I’m sorry it didn’t go as you had hoped!
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Oh what a bummer that you didn’t get the results you were hoping for. But, it sounds like you and the boys are handling this well…hopefully the next few weeks will go by quickly!