About a month ago, Shelby's school gave in-school eye exams and she said it was so fun and cool! Needless to say, we were assuming she would get some sort of notice about her vision given our family history. See, Josh is near sighted and has astigmatism as well as being legally blind in his left eye because when he was born he was accidentally poked in that eye due to his fast delivery. Well, we did...we got a letter a few weeks ago saying she failed it and had "blurred vision at distance viewing" and to make her an eye appointment. We made one at our eye doctor, Dr. McDonnell. and she was seen 2 weeks ago this Thursday. Shelby was diagnosed w/ Amblyopia in her right eye (
This website tells more about what it is) and is near sighted with astigmatism (sound familiar?). Her right eye is by far her worse eye and because of that, she has to wear an eye patch 2 hours a day covering her good eye(left) to make her right eye work harder. She also has to wear glasses. I was so worried she was going to be upset over this but she was the total opposite! She was SOOO EXCITED to get to pick out glasses!
I was thinking, which I don't know why I thought this, she would pick out some that aren't real flashy or stand out, but booooy was I wrong! LOL.. She's NOT that kinda girl...she picked out THE MOST colorful, flashy, stand-out frames there are, and I LOVE THEM and so does she!
AREN'T THEY ADORABLE?!! This was taken the day she chose them. Her mood quickly changed when she realized she didn't get them RIGHT THEN and they had to be ordered. She just cried and cried! In the meantime, I ordered her eye patch. Dr. McDonnell told us to look online for one she likes and that they make all kinds of cool ones. I spent that next afternoon researching and found hers from
Patch Pals. They have THE CUTEST patches and since this is something SHE HAS TO DO, I want it to be something she likes and chose. I let her look through ALL the choices, which was a HUGE selection, and she chose the...
Rainbow Zebra!
Isn't it ADORABLE?!! It came VERY quickly (a week!) but I held it til we got her glasses since it is to be worn on her glasses like this:
It's super soft, and TOTALLY adorable... this is something that Dr. McDonnell has seen firsthand help w/ Amblyopia in kids. It's to be worn 2 hours a day for 5 days, then take a day off for 5 weeks and then we check her eye that has the Amblyopia to see if it has improved.
Her glasses came in yesterday, which took longer than I thought but is totally normal, and we went to pick them up. She's SOOO EXCITED, CAN'T YOU TELL?
They fit perfectly! It's going to take some getting used to but she can see now! It amazed me that she couldn't see things from a distance really at all, but never knew any different. She can now read signs, see leaves, details on building and where I thought she was just being a "5 year old" when we go over her homework and sight word flash cards, she can ACTUALLY read them all now. I didn't know that the reason she was getting "it" wrong was because she didn't know that the "i" was actually an "i" and not a "t". At the distance I was holding them, the "i" looked like a "t" to her and since "tt" isn't a word, it totally confused her. Broke MY HEART when I realized this and she actually SAW "it" when she wore her glasses now. Thank you Dr. McDonnell and staff for helping my baby see!
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| she said, "momma, this is my silly glasses face" lol... |
