Life through new eyes

When Elliot was born, one of his most noticeable features was a significant droopy eye.  Actually, when he was very first born, it was so droopy it was nearly shut the whole time we were in the hospital.  It definitely improved over time, but at his two-month check-up, he was referred to an ophthalmologist, "just in case".

At that appointment, the doctor took a look, even dilated his pupils and said, "My diagnosis is...he has a droopy eye.  But he's way too young for it to be indicative of anything, so come back in six months and we'll see how it looks then."

That follow-up appointment was about a month ago.  The doctor dilated Elliot's pupils again and I noticed that this exam was taking significantly longer than the first one.  I also started to notice that the doctor was doing things like frowning every now and again and saying things like, "Hmmm."  Stuff that start to make you uneasy when a doctor starts doing during an exam on yourself, much less one of your children.  "There's nothing wrong with the droopy eye," he said, "That part is fine.  But I don't like what I see here."

Luckily it was just an ophthalmologist.

He handed me a prescription for Elliot to get glasses.  I was a little emotional about it at first.

It turns out that Elliot is far-sighted, which the doctor said that most babies are.  However, most babies also get less far-sighted as they get older and Elliot was getting worse, so that's obviously not what you want to see.  Elliot also has lopsided focus.  One of his eyes is much more far-sighted than the other.  Apparently, when that happens, the brain picks up on the fact that one eye is easier to see out of than the other and will start to favor it until the weaker eye stops focusing altogether.  When that happens, you get a lazy eye or crossed eyes.

So we were pretty lucky that we caught all this, because it had nothing to do with why we were even referred to the ophthalmologist.

Today we picked up his glasses, and we're pleased to report he's doing pretty well.  He was pretty beat when we got home from picking them up, so he pretty much went straight to bed but we did take a video when we started playing with him when he got up.





I'm trying to get over some serious Mommy Guilt.  When the Physician's Assistant handed me the referral for the ophthalmologist when he was 2 months old, I was irritated.  Even a little mad.  "This is so stupid.  He's two months old, for crying out loud, how on earth could you even tell if anything was wrong?!"  But because we took him in so early, the doctor clearly saw the problems develop between the appointments when he was two months and eight months old.  I'm really, really grateful for the PA that wanted me to take him in so that we could find this problem so early and get it properly treated.  He definitely would have developed a lazy eye or crossed eyes without these glasses.

So, now our little guy looks a lot more brainy...

And even more adorable, in my humble opinion.  :)