At M's last appointment with her surgeon, the lady asked when are we patching. I gave her general hours that we patch from the morning until night. And she always replies - ok. Like a non-judgmental 'ok'. She doesn't say that it's a great amount of time to patch, we should do more, that we and M are doing a good job; she just says 'ok' all cheery like.
I think the attempt is being made to be non-judgmental without encouraging us to do less patching, or scolding us for not doing enough patching.
But I have a hard time with silence, and hearing an 'ok' from someone who I know is thinking in her head - we're doing a good job, or they could be patching more.
So... I try to fill the space. I said I thought we were doing a good job, I have been thinking I could probably add an extra 30 minutes to the end of every day but it's a really hard time of day. The 2 kids are super hungry and therefore usually quite angry, my husband isn't home from work, and I'm working on making supper usually with 1 or 2 kids crying around me, being held, or throwing some sort of tantrum in the middle of the kitchen floor. Let me answer the question you may be thinking to yourself - yes, I've tried feeding them earlier or have attempted to give them snacks. But M in particular is only willing to accept supper at this point.
So since this appointment, where I was 'not judged' by the lady we see, I have been working super hard to get supper ready 30 minutes earlier for M to eat, and then we all eat when my husband gets home from work just as M is finishing. This most days, gets us another 30-45 minutes more of patching.
So by the time I left the office at the appointment I had talked myself into doing this new schedule, because I apparently was feeling guilty for not patching this extra time. I told the lady that I had to weigh my quality of life against an extra 30 minutes of patching, and well quality of life had been winning. From the one-sided conversation I had with this lady, simply as a result of her asking me how long M was patching, I figured I must be suffering from some internal guilt.
So with a few changes, a little push from my conversation basically with myself to the lady, and patience, we have lengthened M's patching day by about 30-45 minutes everyday. We are patching full days everyday, but now each day is just a tiny bit longer. Instead of her having 1.5 hours of no patching at night, it's now closer to just the hour we were supposed to be having her unpatched at the end of the day.
Tuesday 30 April 2013
Thursday 25 April 2013
Sand...
M at the park!
Except she flung sand and must have gotten some in her eye. She was rubbing her eye, and it quickly became red and irritated, and a little puffy. I tried eye drop after eye drop to get some sand out (not that I could see any but figured it must be in there), and managed to get her home, fed, and put down for a nap, still with the contact in and patch on. I was trying everything to keep the contact in and patch on...
I was hoping the nap would make it better?!
She woke up from her nap, eye still definitely irritated, so I had to remove her contact, and thus remove the patch. She ended up with a fun day at the park, an irritated eye, and a shorter patching day... A day like this makes me think I should get good at putting the contact in her eye by myself; then I could have taken it out, cleaned it, and put it back in and not lost patching time. Soon! I might work on that...
Except she flung sand and must have gotten some in her eye. She was rubbing her eye, and it quickly became red and irritated, and a little puffy. I tried eye drop after eye drop to get some sand out (not that I could see any but figured it must be in there), and managed to get her home, fed, and put down for a nap, still with the contact in and patch on. I was trying everything to keep the contact in and patch on...
I was hoping the nap would make it better?!
She woke up from her nap, eye still definitely irritated, so I had to remove her contact, and thus remove the patch. She ended up with a fun day at the park, an irritated eye, and a shorter patching day... A day like this makes me think I should get good at putting the contact in her eye by myself; then I could have taken it out, cleaned it, and put it back in and not lost patching time. Soon! I might work on that...
Wednesday 24 April 2013
Another 4 Week Check-up
M had another appointment yesterday with her surgeon and optometrist.
She had her cataract removal surgery on November 23, 2012 and started wearing a contact and patching just over 1 week later. Which means we've been doing contacts and patching for almost exactly 5 months now. Which also means that we've been seeing this surgeon and optometrist for 5 months now, every few days, to every week, to every second week, and now to once every 4 weeks.
The first time we scheduled an appointment for 4 weeks later seemed so strange. We had gotten used to having to take M so frequently to see them, that it seemed odd and wrong not to be taking her. But, like everything else, seeing these 2 people now every 4 weeks has become something we are used to; in fact this appointment yesterday seemed to come so quickly since the last one, I didn't even realize it had been the 4 weeks. Previously, I had been counting down the days, and definitely knew when the next appointment was.
So the appointment... Everything is good. We are to continue to have M patch full days every day. Contact looks like it fits pretty well, and we haven't been having too many issues with patching (definitely some issues, but not too bad!).
I did discuss with the optometrist how to keep the contact cleaner. Despite nightly removals and cleanings, it seems to get cloudier as time goes by, and some days seem worse than others. The contact still isn't that bad, and the next time we take M to the optometrist (in another 4 weeks!) he said he will show me how to do a hydrogen peroxide cleaning with it. He would have showed me yesterday, but I didn't think we had much time. Appointments had been late, and it was getting dangerously close to supper time, with still rush hour traffic to get through.
All in all, things are and seem good at home and at these appointments. I'm sure most people end up feeling this way, but I just think M's surgeon and optometrist are the best people for us and her. They are so involved in her care, and are reachable when we need them, and are willing to have discussions about whatever you need to be discussing, when you see them. I don't know how they got into eyes, but I'm glad they did since we've found ourselves in this position!
She had her cataract removal surgery on November 23, 2012 and started wearing a contact and patching just over 1 week later. Which means we've been doing contacts and patching for almost exactly 5 months now. Which also means that we've been seeing this surgeon and optometrist for 5 months now, every few days, to every week, to every second week, and now to once every 4 weeks.
The first time we scheduled an appointment for 4 weeks later seemed so strange. We had gotten used to having to take M so frequently to see them, that it seemed odd and wrong not to be taking her. But, like everything else, seeing these 2 people now every 4 weeks has become something we are used to; in fact this appointment yesterday seemed to come so quickly since the last one, I didn't even realize it had been the 4 weeks. Previously, I had been counting down the days, and definitely knew when the next appointment was.
So the appointment... Everything is good. We are to continue to have M patch full days every day. Contact looks like it fits pretty well, and we haven't been having too many issues with patching (definitely some issues, but not too bad!).
I did discuss with the optometrist how to keep the contact cleaner. Despite nightly removals and cleanings, it seems to get cloudier as time goes by, and some days seem worse than others. The contact still isn't that bad, and the next time we take M to the optometrist (in another 4 weeks!) he said he will show me how to do a hydrogen peroxide cleaning with it. He would have showed me yesterday, but I didn't think we had much time. Appointments had been late, and it was getting dangerously close to supper time, with still rush hour traffic to get through.
All in all, things are and seem good at home and at these appointments. I'm sure most people end up feeling this way, but I just think M's surgeon and optometrist are the best people for us and her. They are so involved in her care, and are reachable when we need them, and are willing to have discussions about whatever you need to be discussing, when you see them. I don't know how they got into eyes, but I'm glad they did since we've found ourselves in this position!
Friday 19 April 2013
Contact: Getting it in the Eye
This is a video showing how we get a contact in M's eye every morning. This video is recent, and so when you watch it please remember we have now had over 3 months of practice with it. When we first started, this is not what it looked like! Check out an earlier post to see what it was like to get the contact in at the beginning.
We still use 2 people to get it in her eye in the morning. My husband still kind of loosely kneels over her body and pulls on her eye lids opening the eye so I can insert the contact. It usually only takes us 1 try in the morning to get the contact in, and she rarely fights us anymore. I have managed to get it in her eye once on my own, when I was the only one at the house; however, mostly because we have 2 people available most mornings, we haven't attempted to get the process down to only needing one person. I'm sure I could get it in myself at this point, with a few days of practice, and it could become the new system. We will work at this at some point soon, but will wait until there is a need, because we are in a calm place right now where things seem to be working.
I was talking about how we should have taken the time to record the early days of trying to get the contact in M's eye. We should have recorded it just to have the ability to look back and see how much things have changed. I know things have changed, and I know that M is dramatically different when we put her contact in, but it would be a good refresher just to see the difference. The difference is huge! I just didn't think that I wanted to be able to replay that part of our morning over and over, and there didn't really seem time to be recording!
I have posted 2 earlier videos showing how we remove M's contact: contact removal with 2 people and contact removal with 1 person.
We still use 2 people to get it in her eye in the morning. My husband still kind of loosely kneels over her body and pulls on her eye lids opening the eye so I can insert the contact. It usually only takes us 1 try in the morning to get the contact in, and she rarely fights us anymore. I have managed to get it in her eye once on my own, when I was the only one at the house; however, mostly because we have 2 people available most mornings, we haven't attempted to get the process down to only needing one person. I'm sure I could get it in myself at this point, with a few days of practice, and it could become the new system. We will work at this at some point soon, but will wait until there is a need, because we are in a calm place right now where things seem to be working.
I was talking about how we should have taken the time to record the early days of trying to get the contact in M's eye. We should have recorded it just to have the ability to look back and see how much things have changed. I know things have changed, and I know that M is dramatically different when we put her contact in, but it would be a good refresher just to see the difference. The difference is huge! I just didn't think that I wanted to be able to replay that part of our morning over and over, and there didn't really seem time to be recording!
I have posted 2 earlier videos showing how we remove M's contact: contact removal with 2 people and contact removal with 1 person.
Monday 15 April 2013
Snippets
M has been in some sort of patching utopia lately. For, what seems like months, M has accepted putting on her patch every morning with very little fuss, rarely attempts to take her patch off herself, and is eager and ready for me to take her patch off while sitting on my lap at the end of the day. Of course, it's probably been a few weeks of great patching days, considering we've only been at this patching thing for a few months...
Things have been going so well lately. Full day patching at it's best!
M has changed... She's still really good at this whole patching thing, but... Things have changed.
Here's a little screenplay version of some of our daily moments:
Scene 1
Mommy: M don't touch the fireplace.
M: screams and tries to touch fireplace again.
Mommy: M don't touch the fireplace. Removing M from the area of the fireplace.
M: Puts her hand up to her patch angrily as if to threaten ripping it off her face.
Mommy: No M!
M: Realizes that could be a bad idea, and decides to not rip her patch off OR she throws herself to the floor in a full tantrum always banging her head.
This situation is being repeated throughout our day, with a variety of no-no's inserted where the example of the fireplace is used.
I blame the fact that she's getting 4 upper teeth right now. We've been working on the different stages of those first 4 uppers for probably the past 2 weeks. Considering to date she only has 3 teeth in total out, I'm thinking if teeth is the current issue in patching right now, it could last much longer than I'm hoping it will!
Things have been going so well lately. Full day patching at it's best!
M has changed... She's still really good at this whole patching thing, but... Things have changed.
Here's a little screenplay version of some of our daily moments:
Scene 1
Mommy: M don't touch the fireplace.
M: screams and tries to touch fireplace again.
Mommy: M don't touch the fireplace. Removing M from the area of the fireplace.
M: Puts her hand up to her patch angrily as if to threaten ripping it off her face.
Mommy: No M!
M: Realizes that could be a bad idea, and decides to not rip her patch off OR she throws herself to the floor in a full tantrum always banging her head.
This situation is being repeated throughout our day, with a variety of no-no's inserted where the example of the fireplace is used.
I blame the fact that she's getting 4 upper teeth right now. We've been working on the different stages of those first 4 uppers for probably the past 2 weeks. Considering to date she only has 3 teeth in total out, I'm thinking if teeth is the current issue in patching right now, it could last much longer than I'm hoping it will!
Thursday 4 April 2013
Contact Removal by 1 Person
This video below shows how we remove M's contact with just 1 person. We still usually use 2 people to insert and remove the contact, but I can now remove it myself with few issues.
Check out this previous post to see removing the contact with 2 people.
Contact removal seems easier than inserting the contact. It has always been faster to get it out than to get the contact in. M has always been less fussy with removal than she was with insertion.
Check out this previous post to see removing the contact with 2 people.
Contact removal seems easier than inserting the contact. It has always been faster to get it out than to get the contact in. M has always been less fussy with removal than she was with insertion.
Wednesday 3 April 2013
Napping with a Patch
I finally got around to it: my newest nap invention for M!
I'm hoping this combination of shirt and added fabric will work better as the weather is getting warmer. Plus, there won't be the need for the mittens underneath the diaper shirt which will make getting ready for naps a little less of an ordeal. This shirt is not sewn at the end of the sleeves. I instead just sewed a circular tube out of some thicker fabric, and then attached that tube to her shirt sleeve.
The first thing I needed was fabric to attach to the end of the long sleeved shirt. I cut out two rectangular shaped pieces of fabric and folded them over ready to sew.
I sewed around 3 edges of these pieces of fabric, leaving the 1 edge open creating a kind of pocket.
The next step was the slip this piece of pocketed fabric over the bottom part of the shirt sleeve. This way hands can come out of the shirt like normal, but can't rip off any patches because the hand is inside this fabric pocket attached to the end.
I hand sewed the fabric pieces on the bottom of the shirt.
The idea was that the thicker fabric addition will make it harder for her to pinch through the fabric to rip her patch off, and give her hands and arms some more mobility and air.
So far, fingers crossed, this has been working really well. I would imagine it is more comfortable for her to nap in then the mittens and it seems to give her more ability to move, without the ability to pinch her fingers and get to her patch.
I'm hoping this combination of shirt and added fabric will work better as the weather is getting warmer. Plus, there won't be the need for the mittens underneath the diaper shirt which will make getting ready for naps a little less of an ordeal. This shirt is not sewn at the end of the sleeves. I instead just sewed a circular tube out of some thicker fabric, and then attached that tube to her shirt sleeve.
I sewed around 3 edges of these pieces of fabric, leaving the 1 edge open creating a kind of pocket.
The next step was the slip this piece of pocketed fabric over the bottom part of the shirt sleeve. This way hands can come out of the shirt like normal, but can't rip off any patches because the hand is inside this fabric pocket attached to the end.
I hand sewed the fabric pieces on the bottom of the shirt.
The idea was that the thicker fabric addition will make it harder for her to pinch through the fabric to rip her patch off, and give her hands and arms some more mobility and air.
So far, fingers crossed, this has been working really well. I would imagine it is more comfortable for her to nap in then the mittens and it seems to give her more ability to move, without the ability to pinch her fingers and get to her patch.
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