Addie met with her ophthalmologist over a week ago. She had her eyes looked at and even had them dilated to see if she had lost any vision prior to her eye surgery in December. Addie's eyes were doing great, but she has now developed a condition called Ambloypia (or Lazy Eye): "Any problem in the normal development of vision during childhood can cause amblyopia. When the eyes are not looking at the same thing at the same time, the eyes struggle with each other. The brain is forced to choose between the eyes. Sometimes, the brain goes back and forth between eyes, and vision is good in both eyes. Sometimes, one eye is favored while the other eye is suppressed or ignored. If this continues, sight in the eye that is ignored may be lost."
Addie's brain is favoring her right eye and her left eye is becoming weaker. After the surgery her eyes were straight for awhile, but over the last while we have noticed her left eye turning in sometimes. Usually when she is tired or just staring at nothing. I was hoping that we were just being paranoid, but wasn't so hopeful as time went on. So, I was glad that it was time for her follow-up appointment.
Fortunately, her vision is good right now and she does not need glasses. But she does need some help with her left eye. We will be patching her "good" eye everyday for a couple hours. She will see her ophthalmologist again in three months. Hopefully she will show some improvement.
The first day I patched Addie's eye she was mad for only about 30 minutes. She fought me for a few days just when I would put it on and then she was fine. Now she just lets me put it on and is fine while wearing it. The only time she cries is when I have to rip it off and that is because it hurts. Today, though, she didn't even cry when I took it off, which makes me cry. She is such a good sport about this. I dreaded the patch because of how hard it was before her surgery, so I am so happy that it is going so well this time. I just know that angels are watching over our sweet little Addie. She is blessed and so are we.
I tried getting some pictures of her with it on one morning, but she would not hold still, of course. She rarely does :) I drew an eye on her patch this day. I normally don't color on them :)
When we are out in public when she is wearing her patch, lots of kids point and tell their mom to "look at that baby." And they ask their mom why the baby is wearing that on her eye. Or ask what happened to her eye. The moms usually shush their kids and whisper something. Kids are cute. And hopefully we will get this taken care of before she gets older and notices :)
