October 17, 2012

 

A Chapter from the Book of Shelbi:

The Patch Years

 



 I took this picture of Shelbi when she first got her glasses.  She was four years old.  I had noticed that every once in a while she would go cross-eyed.  I asked her pediatrician about it and he sent us to a pediatric opthalmologist.  She was diagnosed with amblyopia, which is basically lazy eye.  When just the glasses didn't help with the condition, we had to try patching one eye.  She was outfitted with this:

That was a miserable time.  The point of it was to block her good eye, so the weak eye would have to work harder and get stronger.  But she'd find a way to turn her head ever so slightly and still use her good eye.  We were making no progress and surgery looked like it was in her future.

  We moved to Michigan at this point and her new doctor, while frustrating at first, was very good.  He suggested we use this kind of patch:

 

  It worked wonders.  Her vision in her bad eye improved quickly. Although it wasn't without a lot of sacrificing on her part.  She had to wear this patch six days a week, for eight hours a day.  This lasted for over a year.  There was much celebrating the day the doctor declared her done with the patch.
  Her eyesight isn't perfect, it never will be.  The left eye will always be weaker than the right.  But her eyes don't cross any more and have stopped getting weaker.  Her current eye doctor has told me that she wouldn't recommend Shelbi ever get contacts.  If something were to damage her good eye, she'd be in a lot of trouble.  So that's where she is today.