opthamology

We had a visit with Caelan's opthamologist yesterday.  We arrived for our 2:15 appointment on time and got back to the van at 5:10pm.  It was a very long and frustrating appointment spent mostly in the waiting room. 
First we saw a resident doctor and student who tried to check Caelan's eyes.  He wasn't very cooperative.  It was determined that because it's been so long since his last appointment he should get drops so they could have a better look.  Back to the waiting room.

We were called in by the nurse to apply the drops.  There are two set of drops.  The first ones went in easily enough but the second ones not so much.  Caelan is such a smart boy and he learns quick.  He knew what was coming the minute I tried to lower him back down.  He's also a very strong boy, apparently even his eyelids are pretty strong!  It takes half an hour for the drops to take effect so back to the waiting room.

Next another resident tries to take a look at Caelan's eyes after the drops have enlarged the pupils.  After several attempts it seems Caelan is going to make this difficult and perhaps we should just leave it for the Doctor.  It's apparent that Caelan is not going to let us look in his eyes willingly and the resident doesn't want to get Caelan so upset that the Doctor is unable to have a look.  Best just to leave it to her.  Kind of a one shot deal.  Back to the waiting room.

Finally we see the Opthamologist.  No fooling around now, Mr. Caelan.  After playing nice for a bit the Doctor had Mommy hold Caelan's arms up over his head, pinning his head in place so she could have a look.  Even at that Caelan bucked and squirmed and almost falling off my lap while she had to force his eyelids opento have a look.  Not so much fun.

Now what did she see?  Well, in his good eye she was able to see some pigment, which is REALLY good.  It means he CAN see!  (Okay, I know that WE already knew that!!!)  Unfortunately, she wasn't able to see any in his poor eye but that may have had more to do with the uncooperative situation than anything else.  Now how much or how well he can see is yet to be determined.  We have to wait for Caelan to be able to tell us that.  For now, the good eye is considered 'functional'.  The other eye probably not. 

When asked how patching was going I advised her that it simply wasn't anymore because he just rips the patch off and I'm having a really hard time distracting him enough to keep it on longer than a few minutes.  I was afraid I might get a long lecture but she understood.  She explained that she feels there is probably so little vision in the poor eye, if any, that he already has developed a dependance on the good eye.  Makes sense.  She wanted to know if I felt that we had tried to strengthen the poor eye and if we were ready to say enough was enough.  This was hard.  I asked if there was an alternative to the patching and she explained that we could try and blur the vision in the good eye to try again to force the poor eye to work.  This would be done with glasses and one blurry lens.  I get the feeling that the poor eye is really bad, cover Caelan's good eye and he looses it.  I'm not sure I want to do that anymore.  She agreed whole heartedly. 

When I think back I remember that it was us that asked about the patching in the first place.  It was us that asked if there was anythign we could do to strengthen that poor eye, if there was any vision in it.  That's when she told us about the patches.  I'd like to think that she did this not really convinced that we were going to get results, but more to ensure that we knew we had tried everything we could.  Does that make sense.  That might make some families angry, feeling they'd been given false hope but I don't feel like that at all.

Anyway, it was decided that we need to change our focus from trying to strengthen the poor eye to protecting the good eye.  Little boys are 3 times more likely to injure their eyes than little girls.  Great!  So... Caelan will be getting protective eye wear.  There was another little boy in the waiting room who actually had a pair on.  Their a durable plastic frame and almost look like toy glasses.  They'll be filled with unprescribed lenses, just glass for now.  It's an opportunity to not only protect the eye but also get him used to wearing the glasses he'll in all likelihood need once he can tell us so.

Should be interesting... wonder how many times Caelan can take glasses off in... umm... a minute?