Lindsey had a follow up eye appointment today with the pediatric ophthamologist. Just a little background: just about two years ago, I noticed her left eye turning in once in awhile and thought we should get it checked out since she had (well, both girls had) ROP or Retinopathy of Prematurity while in the NICU. They had weekly eye exams by the retinal specialist from six weeks on an at approximately 36 weeks, they crossed the "threshold", having progressed to Stage III with plus disease and had laser surgery (Christmas Eve for Sydney & New Years Eve for Lindsey). Thus, they will always be at risk for problems of the eye. The surgery went well. We had regular follow-ups and then were released after a few years, until I noticed the turning in.
So, that began our journey with glasses and a diagnosis of Amblyopia or "lazy eye". She got her glasses in January 2006 and we started patching her good eye in May 2006. We did a short stint with drops instead of the patch for awhile, but that did NOT go over well with Lindsey, plus her good eye seemed to wander then. Very freaky. So we went back to patching.
All in all, the patching has been going well. She had quite a disparity in vision between her two eyes and with the patching and glasses, she has improved with every follow-up visit (approximately every 12 weeks). Today, she tested 20/25 with her bad eye and even got three letters right on the 20/20 line, so THIS we are excited about.
The not-so-good news is that her "turning in" or crossing of the left eye is getting worse. Without her glasses on it's REALLY bad. We are doing one more thing before we seriously talk about surgery. We made an appointment for next Tuesday and she will get five doses of Atropine before the appointment. It's a different type of medication for dialation and the doctor will be better able to tell if her current prescription is 'right-on'. If it isn't, we'll get new lenses and see how that goes. If it is, well, then we'll discuss more about the surgical route.
I'll have an update on all this next week. Until then, I'm not really thinking about it, although, I do have an underlying feeling that we will probably end up with the surgery.
You may even be able to see in a couple of the following pictures how her left eye is turning in with and even more, without her glasses on.
To some fun news...last week, we finally bunked the beds! The girls were so excited! Of course, my underlying motivation was I wanted to do something about their toys in the playroom that never seem to get picked up. I thought that it would be much more likely for them to pick up the toys every night if the toys were in their room. So, we bunked the beds and moved a bunch of their toys into their room. I'm happy, because now I'm going to be using some of the space in our extra room too!
Here they are the first night:
A couple weeks ago, the girls also had a fun day with dad and grandpa. Dad took a day off work and he and the girls headed out to the lake with grandpa for a little fishing fun! Not too many fish were caught, but Lindsey and Sydney sure had a good time and can't wait to go again. Their mom was a young fisher too and I still love to fish! I could spend a whole day in the boat then, and even now!
We're off!
We caught one!
Again, I feel terrible for the long time between entries. Summer is just getting away from me and we've had so much going on, so much fun and lots to tell! Stay tuned!
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