My Little Four Eyes

Tobin had a great check up for his 18 month appointment in September, and then, two weeks later, I looked down at him and his right eye is crossed. Like, overnight, his eye was crossed. After a week or so (and asking other people if they saw it to make sure I wasn’t crazy) we took him back to the pediatrician. Even she was surprised because she had just seen him. We left her office with a referral in hand.

We live in a small city, and there is only one ophthalmologist who cares for kids, so there is a substantial wait time to get in. We didn’t see Dr. B for the first time until November. During the visit, Dr. B diagnosed Tobin with extreme farsightedness that was causing amblyopia in his right eye. Basically, he had such poor vision for anything close to his face, that he was going cross-eyed trying to focus. The correction for amblyopia is glasses all the time and patching the strong eye.

The first couple of weeks, Tobin didn’t like the glasses, but kept the patch on okay. Then he switched, and is now doing great with the glasses but is sneaky with the patch. He only has to wear the patch for two hours a day, but we’re happy if we can get him to keep it on for an hour. But every bit of the fighting to keep the patch on is worth it.

At his first follow-up appointment, Dr. B told us that he had avoided telling us just how bad T’s eyesight is at the first appointment because he didn’t want to panic us (it’s like he’d met me before or something). Without the glasses,  Tobin can see very little out of his weak eye (and his strong eye isn’t much better). With the patching and glasses, T’s eyes had improved by half at the first check up. I was so very relieved to know that we were making progress! Dr. B was also happy and urged us to keep going with the routine.

We now bribe him to let us put the patch on (hey, it works, and it’s helping his eye). Tobin had his second follow-up appointment with Dr. B last week and his vision has improved so much that (with glasses), the doctor said, “I would almost call his vision ‘good’.” Good, y’all! Good! What this really means is two things: (1) we don’t have to think about corrective surgery right now, and (2) Tobin can now see the books he loves to look at.

Tobin will, most likely, have glasses his whole life. I’m fine with that. I’m even more fine if we can prevent surgery. Also? He totally rocks the glasses.