Reducing!

M's appointments lately have been testing her vision and getting between 20/25 and 20/30.

I had talked last appointment about beginning to consider reducing patching, in hopes that we could get the hours down before she starts school in September.  So this visit was the last before I hoped they would say it would be ok to reduce the patching hours.

M did so well with her pictures and got her highest number of pictures on the vision chart to date!  I think she did 4 out of the 5 pictures on the 20/25 line!  So they gave her the go ahead to start the slow weaning process.

Up to now she has been wearing a patch for all waking hours except about 2 hours.  Now she can be patch-free for about 4 hours a day!  So she'll put her patch on in the morning, and be able to take it off around 3 in the afternoon, stead of 5:30.  She is so excited for more time during her day without her patch.

At her next appointment, she will have to be able to read the same pictures at about the same level in order to continue at the reduced patching hours.  If she can still read the pictures we reduce the hours even more.  If she has difficulty reading the pictures, it means her vision is regressing without the intense patching, and the patching hours would have to increase.

She has been wearing a patch for most of her waking hours, almost everyday for just about 3.5 years. I can list most of the days she has been without a patch: her birthdays, Christmas Day, and any time she had an eye infection.  It has been an incredibly long journey.  I feel like this appointment was the first time that there is 'an end'.  It's a turning point, something different than the last 3.5 years, a point at which she has been working so hard and it's now that that is paying off.  Now is the time, that we get to change the long hours, and start a another journey that might continue to get a little easier as appointments come and go.  Hopefully!