Thursday, 5 November 2015
Tuesday, 27 October 2015
Practicing
M has been very involved with her contacts and patching lately. She is very willing to pick out her patch in the mornings (we ordered a large amount of variety with our last order that she helped me pick out online), and is almost always agreeable to getting her patch put on.
She has been wearing monthly disposable contacts for the last several months (more than 6 now I think). She is always able to have her old contact when we start using a new monthly contact. She loves getting to play with the old one! She gets a contact case, keeps it in water, carries it around, takes it in and out of liquid holding it, and just examines it. The old contact usually only lasts for one day in M's care, but she enjoys getting to handle it the way she wants to.
The other day she was putting her old contact in her doll's eye. Handling it just the way we do, and trying to insert it into her doll's eye.
She has been wearing monthly disposable contacts for the last several months (more than 6 now I think). She is always able to have her old contact when we start using a new monthly contact. She loves getting to play with the old one! She gets a contact case, keeps it in water, carries it around, takes it in and out of liquid holding it, and just examines it. The old contact usually only lasts for one day in M's care, but she enjoys getting to handle it the way she wants to.
The other day she was putting her old contact in her doll's eye. Handling it just the way we do, and trying to insert it into her doll's eye.
Perhaps a few more months of getting older, and more practice on the doll, may result in her being able to put in her own contact!
Tuesday, 13 October 2015
Taking Out Her Own Contact
M has reached a milestone I thought was unreachable!
I thought this day would never come.
I thought it was ridiculous when I saw other blogs saying that their child could do this at the age of 3.
M is so proud.
She does it every night now.
She reminds me every morning she is going to do it at night time.
Any guesses?!
She can take out her own contact!!
I hold her eyelid, and she puts her finger to her eye, and takes out her own contact. My 3.5 year old (will be 4 at the end of February) can take out her own contact!
I thought this day would never come.
I thought it was ridiculous when I saw other blogs saying that their child could do this at the age of 3.
M is so proud.
She does it every night now.
She reminds me every morning she is going to do it at night time.
Any guesses?!
She can take out her own contact!!
I hold her eyelid, and she puts her finger to her eye, and takes out her own contact. My 3.5 year old (will be 4 at the end of February) can take out her own contact!
Tuesday, 5 May 2015
The New Contact
The new contacts M is able to wear now are disposables! That means no more custom lens for now. The custom lens she has been wearing for over 2 years were $175 each. We had lost a few, and eventually they just need to be replaced after a few months of wear (I don't think she had one that was more than 3 months old ever!). The new disposables are monthly lens and they come in a 6 pack! Only about $70.00 for a pack of 6! I tell her 'if your contact falls out or you lose it - it's no big deal!'
The change in prescription has changed M's life. She is able to see so many more things at greater distances.
This is a picture of how she needed to colour with the custom lens to be able to see what she was colouring.
This is a picture of how she can colour now. Notice the difference in how close her face needs to be to the paper. The new lens allows her see from a farther distance, and therefore doesn't need to be so close to focus properly.
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So over the past 2 years her brain has been developing because of all the patching she has been doing, her eye has been growing, and those things combined with a prescription change at this time to meet those needs, has made a dramatic difference in her vision.
When she is patched she can navigate herself around town, seeing stores, landmarks, and streets. She is able to see lower flying airplanes or helicopters and track them in the sky. She is able to participate more in book reading, showing more interest in the stories and pictures.
We love her new contact because it makes her see better and because they are so relatively cheap!
The change in prescription has changed M's life. She is able to see so many more things at greater distances.
This is a picture of how she needed to colour with the custom lens to be able to see what she was colouring.
This is a picture of how she can colour now. Notice the difference in how close her face needs to be to the paper. The new lens allows her see from a farther distance, and therefore doesn't need to be so close to focus properly.
So over the past 2 years her brain has been developing because of all the patching she has been doing, her eye has been growing, and those things combined with a prescription change at this time to meet those needs, has made a dramatic difference in her vision.
When she is patched she can navigate herself around town, seeing stores, landmarks, and streets. She is able to see lower flying airplanes or helicopters and track them in the sky. She is able to participate more in book reading, showing more interest in the stories and pictures.
We love her new contact because it makes her see better and because they are so relatively cheap!
Friday, 6 March 2015
Contact Prescription Change
M began to react negatively to her custom contact that she was wearing. Her eye would get all red, puffy, and generally irritated. It was hard to get the contact into M's eye without her screaming, and it was even harder to keep it in longer than a few hours a day.
Eventually it became obvious that it wasn't just a random or infrequent occurrence, and I made an appointment for her with her optometrist. She managed to keep the contact in until the appointment time, and showed up ready for an examination with a puffy red and irritated eye. I was hoping I could get her there, it was at the end of the day, with the contact still in so the irritation could be witnessed by the optometrist.
The optometrist agreed, and called it 'an angry eye'. Her eye wasn't happy with something, and something needed to be changed so that she could keep wearing her contact and patching. The optometrist happened to have a few disposables in his office, and gave us two to take home and try. They were both a change in prescription, size of lens, and type of material.
Even though these contacts were much larger than her previous custom lens, we were able to get them in her eye. We had tried contacts this size 2 years ago, but they were much too big to fit and get into her eye. So she has grown, and these larger contacts are now able to fit.
After taking these trial lens home, we realized that these were much better for her at this point. She was happier, her eye was happier, and she could see so much better!
Eventually it became obvious that it wasn't just a random or infrequent occurrence, and I made an appointment for her with her optometrist. She managed to keep the contact in until the appointment time, and showed up ready for an examination with a puffy red and irritated eye. I was hoping I could get her there, it was at the end of the day, with the contact still in so the irritation could be witnessed by the optometrist.
The optometrist agreed, and called it 'an angry eye'. Her eye wasn't happy with something, and something needed to be changed so that she could keep wearing her contact and patching. The optometrist happened to have a few disposables in his office, and gave us two to take home and try. They were both a change in prescription, size of lens, and type of material.
Even though these contacts were much larger than her previous custom lens, we were able to get them in her eye. We had tried contacts this size 2 years ago, but they were much too big to fit and get into her eye. So she has grown, and these larger contacts are now able to fit.
After taking these trial lens home, we realized that these were much better for her at this point. She was happier, her eye was happier, and she could see so much better!
Sunday, 23 November 2014
2 Years Ago
It was 2 years ago we got our little one ready for her surgery.
And she was returned to us after surgery, seemingly content and happy.
It's hard to imagine it has been 2 years since she had surgery. Since surgery we have been on the all day everyday patching plan. Generally we aim to have her patch on as much as possible, everyday, and usually that means she's getting about an hour without her patch a day. It has been 2 years of us parenting a child that wears a patch.
When a surgeon sits down with you before the surgery date is set, and he or she says to you - surgery is difficult but it's after surgery with the patching that is the hard part - they couldn't be more right. Surgery was hard, and felt devastating at the time, but there was an end to the surgery, she was returned to us, and it was over. Patching - it's never over.
Patching is a struggle and presence in our life everyday. As M gets older she is starting to realize it sucks to have to wear a patch. She realizes how much she can't see when she has to wear her patch and she has become very good at verbalizing her annoyances with it. She has come up with some masterful ways in which to convince you that you need to take her contact out and therefore have to take her patch off... She knows all the contact and patching language, and has become quite accustomed to the 5-6 week check ups at the hospital.
She has worn her patch everywhere. We insist she wears her patch everyday. I find it easier to just keep her wearing her patch as much as possible, with little exceptions as possible, so she knows its a part of her life everyday all day, almost regardless of what we are doing.
She learned to crawl and walk with her patch.
She learned to drive a tractor.
Taught everyone we saw all about patches and cataracts.
Learned to play in water and swim (without losing a contact or patch!).
Went on vacations at beaches (yes that's a beach of sand - worst nightmare mixing children with contacts and sand!).
Drive crazy shopping carts with her brother.
In two years she has learned a lot and done a lot, and she has managed to do it all with a patch. She knows she wears a patch, and she knows why, she also knows that she is the only person she knows that wears one. She knows she looks a little different from her friends now, and she knows that when she wears her patch she can't see very much at all. She knows she misses lots in the world around her because she can't see, but she has learned to fake it! She knows that sand and dirt make her contact hurt her, and she has learned that getting squirted with orange in her contact eye really hurts her too.
I know that in the future she will know and understand that we did all this surgery, and subsequent patching for her, and the possibility of the best possible vision outcome in that eye. In the end, it'll be worth it, all this hard work, all the fights and struggles, and all the times she notices she's a little different. In the end we will be able to say we did the best we could, and she did the best she could, and we can deal with whatever comes after that.
And she was returned to us after surgery, seemingly content and happy.
It's hard to imagine it has been 2 years since she had surgery. Since surgery we have been on the all day everyday patching plan. Generally we aim to have her patch on as much as possible, everyday, and usually that means she's getting about an hour without her patch a day. It has been 2 years of us parenting a child that wears a patch.
When a surgeon sits down with you before the surgery date is set, and he or she says to you - surgery is difficult but it's after surgery with the patching that is the hard part - they couldn't be more right. Surgery was hard, and felt devastating at the time, but there was an end to the surgery, she was returned to us, and it was over. Patching - it's never over.
Patching is a struggle and presence in our life everyday. As M gets older she is starting to realize it sucks to have to wear a patch. She realizes how much she can't see when she has to wear her patch and she has become very good at verbalizing her annoyances with it. She has come up with some masterful ways in which to convince you that you need to take her contact out and therefore have to take her patch off... She knows all the contact and patching language, and has become quite accustomed to the 5-6 week check ups at the hospital.
She has worn her patch everywhere. We insist she wears her patch everyday. I find it easier to just keep her wearing her patch as much as possible, with little exceptions as possible, so she knows its a part of her life everyday all day, almost regardless of what we are doing.
She learned to crawl and walk with her patch.
She learned to drive a tractor.
Taught everyone we saw all about patches and cataracts.
Learned to play in water and swim (without losing a contact or patch!).
Went on vacations at beaches (yes that's a beach of sand - worst nightmare mixing children with contacts and sand!).
Drive crazy shopping carts with her brother.
In two years she has learned a lot and done a lot, and she has managed to do it all with a patch. She knows she wears a patch, and she knows why, she also knows that she is the only person she knows that wears one. She knows she looks a little different from her friends now, and she knows that when she wears her patch she can't see very much at all. She knows she misses lots in the world around her because she can't see, but she has learned to fake it! She knows that sand and dirt make her contact hurt her, and she has learned that getting squirted with orange in her contact eye really hurts her too.
I know that in the future she will know and understand that we did all this surgery, and subsequent patching for her, and the possibility of the best possible vision outcome in that eye. In the end, it'll be worth it, all this hard work, all the fights and struggles, and all the times she notices she's a little different. In the end we will be able to say we did the best we could, and she did the best she could, and we can deal with whatever comes after that.
Friday, 21 March 2014
M's Last Appointment
M turned 2!
On her birthday she had an eye appointment - what a way to celebrate! As soon as we walked into the office she was very excitedly greeted by the receptionist with a big 'Happy Birthday'. And in response she buried her head in my shoulder. The whole day when someone gave her a birthday greeting she responded 'no happy birthday'.
Then when she got called in for her appointment she was again greeted with another enthusiastic birthday greeting to which she buried her head again and said 'no happy birthday'.
The 'terrible twos' hit hard this day. She was so uncooperative at this appointment, refusing to identify any images close up or far away. She wouldn't talk to the lady doing the check up, and couldn't even be bribed with stickers. In the end she identified an image maybe four times, after a 30 minute struggle to get her to cooperate. The thought is there has been improvement, the limited images she identified were from a slightly farther distance and that was with little to no cooperation.
M is still full-time patching and wearing her contact.
Her next appointment is in another 5 weeks at the end of March with her surgeon again, and hopefully she's over the 'terrible twos' by then!
On her birthday she had an eye appointment - what a way to celebrate! As soon as we walked into the office she was very excitedly greeted by the receptionist with a big 'Happy Birthday'. And in response she buried her head in my shoulder. The whole day when someone gave her a birthday greeting she responded 'no happy birthday'.
Then when she got called in for her appointment she was again greeted with another enthusiastic birthday greeting to which she buried her head again and said 'no happy birthday'.
The 'terrible twos' hit hard this day. She was so uncooperative at this appointment, refusing to identify any images close up or far away. She wouldn't talk to the lady doing the check up, and couldn't even be bribed with stickers. In the end she identified an image maybe four times, after a 30 minute struggle to get her to cooperate. The thought is there has been improvement, the limited images she identified were from a slightly farther distance and that was with little to no cooperation.M is still full-time patching and wearing her contact.
Her next appointment is in another 5 weeks at the end of March with her surgeon again, and hopefully she's over the 'terrible twos' by then!
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