Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Expectations

I try to not have too many expectations. With no expectations my mind and heart can't fail me, or let me down.

When Scottie's long awaited ophthalmologist appointment was approaching, the one we waited six months for, I let my guard down. I made a mental list of my hopes and hopes-nots. I told myself she could see well, she probably didn't need glasses yet, and maybe we would have to patch her eyes to help the alignment, but not surgery. I said it to my husband, to my friends, to myself. I didn't want her to have surgery so young. I set myself up.

It's a good thing we trust her Doctor because he said everything my heart feared. Scotlyn, at nine months old, is very, very near sighted. "Very bad, for a baby one even one", the doctor said. She got a prescription for glasses that very day, about -6 in each eye one a little different than the other, but almost the same and surgery "right away, in the next six months" for alignment. The good thing is that her eyes are almost the same strength, so when one focuses the other turns in, but they both do it, which I guess is good.

Glasses. "Finding frames would be the hard part", the doctor said and they were. We wanted Miraflex frames because they bend and are lightweight with no screws, or anything to minimize breakage. I called around until I found a place that carried them and went in very prepared knowing the exact which two frames were for her age group for her to try on and simply put, it was a nightmare.

The first person we dealt with was a ding bat, not listening to our needs, and trying to get my screaming terrified baby to try on every  damn frame they had. Eventually another woman took over who ended up being amazing and brought in two frames in the color we picked and it was very obvious which frame suited Scottie the best. Then, they tried to take measurements and couldn't because she would not stay still and because of her nystagmus.

The glasses took about two weeks to come in and we got the videotape ready only to have Scotlyn pull them off and cry. Then after her nap we tried again and it has been really quite amazing ever since. She will pull them off when she gets tired, but most of the time she leaves them on and she even tries to put them on herself. I think that the glasses do help slow her nystagmus and we have noticed small changes in her vision like not bending down as close to her tray to find her food. We also got grey transition lenses put in and that by far is the best feature. My little moon baby who used to bury her face in me every time we went outside now laughs outdoors and loves walks and playing in the yard. It. is. AMAZING.

We go back in three weeks to report on the glasses and schedule the surgery. I am sure it will be harder on us than her and I sure hope so.