little four eyes

Bilateral medial recession

SURGERY COMPLETE!!

McKenna’s surgery was 5/21 at 9:30am. We had to be there 2 hours early and the drive was an hour! So the wait was horrendous! I do not understand why we have to be there so early but anyway. My husband went in when they gave her the gas and he couldn’t talk about it for about 15 mins, he said he never wants to see her like that again (that’s why I made him do it). The surgery took about an hour, and that went by VERY fast. We went into the phase 1 recovery area and she was already fighting with a nurse, I think she woke up alone and got tangled in her IV line. She couldn’t open her eyes and focus on anything from the anesthesia and she was still groggy so the first 20 mins were the roughest. Her tears were blood and since the nasal passages and everything are connected her runny nose (from crying) was bloody as well, but that passed within a minute or so, THANK GOD! We moved to phase 2 recovery and once they took off the board and IV from her arm she calmed down because that is the thumb she sucks and she couldn’t get to it. She drank some juice and didn’t get sick so within a total of about 30mins from the end of surgery we left to come home. We brought her sunglasses which I think helped and she fell right to sleep once we got on the road. She napped again after about 20 mins at home and did well the rest of the night. She never did vomit from eating and we gave her milk for bed.

She only tried to rub her eyes when she first came out of anesthesia but I think that is because she couldn’t see correctly. Since then she has been great! Putting in the ointment is difficult and definately takes two people, but once I am done she doesn’t cry anymore. We noticed double vision for the first 2 days as she would try to pick things up. This is actually a good sign in that her eyes are trying to work together as they hadn’t before. We worked with her like “Where’s mommy’s nose” and having her pick up small objects, and it has improved dramatically. Her eyes do wander slightly to the outside now and then but for another few weeks we won’t be able to tell if they are just adjusting or if it was an over correction.

McKenna also has a Hypoplastic Cerebellum; this effects her balance and coordination; so on top of not having any depth perception her balance has been delayed so at 22 months she has still been working on walking. Since the surgery she has really been more balanced and is doing wonderfully with her practicing! She is even carrying things while she walks now which she sould never do before because she needed her arms out to balance.

So, right now we are very pleased with the surgery and look forward to her further development. I am sure she will be happy when she can play in the bath in about a week and we don’t have to put the ointment in her eyes anymore. Here is a picture the day after surgery so you can see what to expect with the redness.

Take care!!

Things have been going pretty well with the patch. The first two days she did not want anything to do with it, and even hit me. Then the third day she didn’t try at all to take it off, I was very surprised. I thought it was going to be a continuous battle. As long as she is kept busy she doesn’t mind at all. I set her on my lap and we read or stack things and she remains focused. The other day after I took the patch off, she held her hand infront of her eye, I think she wanted to cover it so that her left eye would straighten out. Her eye is straight when the patch is on, though I haven’t seen much improvement once it is removed. We only leave it on for an hour a day. I hope that is long enough. I wonder what dictates the different lengths of time.
As for suggestions on keeping the patch on:
Once I put it on and put her glasses on I clap and say “yaaaay” ..she smiles and claps then. I also just try to play with something that will hold her attention.. like light up toys with buttons, books, and stacking (or knocking over) things. If she gets bored, that seems to be when the glasses come off and she starts pulling at the patch.

Today was McKenna’s followup from getting her glasses. Dr. Glaser says that he does see a slight improvement and also says that the fact that her right eye occassionally crosses in is a good thing. That since her right eye crosses in, her left eye gets used. He does though want us to patch her right eye for an hour a day. Her next appointment isn’t until the beginning of April so we have plenty of time to work with her on that. The next step of course is then eye muscle surgery. I guess I am still a little unsure about why eye muscle surgery is needed. If she has accommodative esotropia, it is crossing because of her farsightedness. If the farsightedness is addressed with glasses, why would she still need surgery. Her eye isn’t crossed all the time..so I am still confused. I know that glasses can help crossing to an extent but the muscle may still pull a little. But, since her eye is straight some of the time and then at others her right is crossed, I just don’t see how fixing one eye would help. The doctor is great, but I never seem to get the answers I am looking for. I really need to write down my concerns so I remember what to ask when I am there.

Has anyone here had any luck with patching? Anyone have similar issues(farsightedness and esotropia) that were helped with patching and glasses?

So we FINALLY get McKenna’s frames after hours and hours of searching for her size. Then we drop them off at Sears Optical to get fitted for lenses and after a week I call to check on them; turns out the guy who was going to send them out took off after an audit while District Managers and Cops were in route; well, needless to say he never sent them out. So, 10 days after that we are finally able to pick them up, we brought McKenna in the next day so they could be adjusted and the temples can be rounded behind her ears. We were in and out in less than 5 minutes. She kept them on for a few hours while we were out but at home they only lasted for seconds at a time. Well, today during one of the many take-off, put-on “games” I felt something rough. To my disbelief and disgust I see that where they temple was bent (at a right angle vs the rounded cable temple we requested) the plastic was split and cracked all the way down to the wire inside. I immediately went to Sears Optical and the guy who was there suggested cutting the temples and “rigging” a rubber cable temple to it. I say rigging because it is not something that would normally done- I might as well use Elmer’s glue. I then suggest taking temples off another frame (since they don’t carry parts). He then proceeds to pick up metal frames and say that they didn’t have any with that length, I then reminded him that with a metal temple he could cut them to size. “Oh yeah” he says!! Seriously?!? So I am sitting there as he picks up orange frames, blue frames, green frames…my daughters glasses are pink. A manager finally comes in and it is explained to her what has happened and if she had any suggestions. She was talking about the girl who caused the problem, in that she has seen her bend glasses without heating them enough or even at all…that this is probably what happened. I asked that they take care of it ASAP and let me know by this afternoon what the solution was going to be.

The manager spoke with a District Manager who said she could replace the frames..they looked into it and it would have only cost them $10.00 to buy them from the manufacturer. But…noooo… they would have had to open a charge account with them and they refused that. So I am left with the manager personally ordering them from the same online site I ordered from and then requesting a reimbursement from Sears. This of course would take another 2-3 weeks.

I will never- absolutely never order frames from online again. Although that was not the bad experience- we cannot get them quickly replaced in situations like these because the local shops do not have them in-stock. The other problem is that because they do not carry the frames the lenses had to be made to fit them, so we need those exact frames again or else pay another $120 for lenses alone for a different pair of frames (and that was with 50% off) on top of buying the frames from a local shop!! Ugh! And here I thought it was best to save money by buying online since the cheapest glasses I found locally was $125.

This has been an awful experience. My advice would be to just forget about the fact that your child will outgrow the glasses in a few months and just spend the money on glasses from somewhere local so that you are never in this situation.

Oh- and never go to Sears Optical.

She looks so confused!

Ok- Well, we have had a horrible time getting McKenna’s first pair of glasses. From waiting 5 weeks to get them, to the clerk at Sears stashing them in a drawer; not sending them, and then quitting without so much of a note to another clerk to send them. But they finally came back with the lenses today, although we are taking her to get them fitted and the temples rounded to fit around her ears, I had to take pictures!! I put them on her and she left them on for about 15 minutes while I was holding her in my lap. When she was on the floor and trying to crawl however, they began to slip, so she quickly pulled them off. She did though bring them to me to put them back on her, but they wouldn’t stay on. I am hopeful that once they are fitted more properly, that she will forget that they are there and leave them be. Then we will focus on the benefits of the prescription and its effect on her esotropia and farsightedness.

After getting a response to a blog I posted about McKenna’s Pediatric Ophthalmologist I followed thier link to The Children’s Eye Foundation webpage. This is what I found…

About The Children’s Eye Foundation
Originally founded in 1970 as the National Children’s Eye Care Foundation (NCECF), the Children’s Eye Foundation (CEF) is the official foundation of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (AAPOS).  The foundation was founded by the late Dr. Marshall Parks, who is also the acknowledged founder of the pediatric ophthalmology discipline. The mission of the CEF is to develop and implement programs that optimize the quality of life of children by eliminating preventable vision loss and eye disease.

CEF most directly combats Amblyopia, a condition caused when one eye receives inadequate use during early childhood, resulting in reduced vision or even blindness. The child’s brain suppresses the poorer quality image, essentially “turning on blindness”. Amblyopia can be caused by several vision disorders, such as:

• Strabismus: misaligned or “cross-eye”
• Anisometropia: uneven vision
• Cataracts: one or both eyes are cloudy
• Ptosis: or drooping eyelids.

Each year, close to four million children are born in the United States. Research suggests that 5%, or 1 in 20, of the preschool aged population suffer from a vision disorder that could eventually result in permanent vision impairment. Vision disorders have tremendous consequences for both the children afflicted by them and for society as a whole.

This is very reassurring to me as a mother, that there are people out there who care enough to devote their time and career to educating themselves and the public about the causes, treatments and cures of childhood eye disorders.

www.childrenseyefoundation.org

Although my husband disliked the doctor he is actually very acheived in his field. He is a Pediatric Ophthalmologist and specialized in children with developmental disorders. Our daughter has a Hypoplastic Cerebellum-detected while I was pregnant; this causes problems with balance and coordination. While researching about Esotropia- I found information that said that many children with gross motor developmental defects end up having some form of Strabismus and even more likely to have Esotropia.

Dr. Stephen Glaser has a website with a lot of good information on it www.kidseyecare.com He also participates in and support studies with the Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group (PEDIG – a division of National Institute of Health) that further advance the ability to diagnose and treat children with childhood eye disorders.

He also created “Glaser vision” which is a preschool sight screening system. That information is at www.kidseyetest.com

Although I am still processing all of the steps that we may have to take to help my daughters vision, I feel very confident in the doctor that we have in our area.

My husband on the other hand just didn’t like that he made our baby girl cry.

My daughter’s pediatrician first noticed a crossed eye at her 9 month check up. But, she only saw it once and thought maybe it was pseudo strabismus. Of course then I started to notice it more and more-then at her 12 month check up they referred us to several Ophthalmologists. We chose the only Pediatric Ophthalmologist in the area and it took over 2 months to be seen.

The eye exam was torture!

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