Emma's Eyes

I don't know if you remember or not but several weeks ago I blogged about Emma's 3 year check up. We heard a ton of good news...like she was very healthy, and developmentally she was more in line with a four year old than a three year old; some frustrating news like she's perfectly capable of using the big girl potty she's just playing a power game with us; and some kinda scary news about her left eye. The doctor told us that her left eye seemed to be trailing a little bit. She didn't call it a lazy eye...I guess it has to be pretty noticable to be classified as such...but she did say it could cause some vision problems in the future if we didn't get it checked out and corrected (some vision problems like eventual blindness in that eye). I'll admit, this mama was a little freaked out!
The dr. recommended that we see a pediatric opthamologist so we scheduled an appointment with one. I guess summer is a super busy time for eye exams and the like with kids being out of school but it took us several weeks to get an appointment (which we joyfully spent playing at the beach). We finally reached our appointment day (I had a dr's appointment that day too so Emma and I made a day of it and enjoyed some mother/daughter time) and when we saw the eye dr. we all breathed a sigh of relief.
Yes, Emma's left eye was trailing but only a very little bit. In fact, the dr. had a hard time making it happen. She said this meant that Emma's eye and brain were working together pretty well to keep it controlled. She also mentioned that it would probably correct itself on its own BUT also warned that if it didn't it would be harder and a longer process to treat. She suggested that we go ahead and treat it and get it corrected so that we could be done with it. We agreed. SO, Emma is wearing an eye patch for about 2 hours a day for the next 8 weeks. (Not too bad-the eye dr. said if we waited and it didn't correct itself she would be wearing a patch between 10 and 12 hours per day for a minimum of 6 months to correct the problem). I was dreading having to patch Emma's eye because I was certain it would be a fight every single day but remarkablely Emma doesn't mind wearing it at all. We usually put it on after lunch and wear it around the house for our 2 hours and Emma rarely if ever even messes with it! So far we're about 2 weeks in and it's pretty much been a piece of cake. I am so thankful we will be totally done before Jack arrives at the end of October!! One less thing to deal with!

My sweet patched up Emma T!