Twin Adventures :: Vision Update

Both Eli and Maddie had eye doctor visits this week. They were originally scheduled for March, but had to be pushed back because of COVID-19 and subsequent shelter-in-place orders. We debated back and forth on whether or not to push the appointments back again, but decided that we should go ahead and get them in. We both felt comfortable with the doctor offices' safety policies, and we are thankful for the kindness of strangers working to keep people around them safe.

Maddie was up first. Her visit was a follow-up with the pediatric ophthalmologist {surgeon} to see if her glasses helped correct her strabismus {cross eye}. We knew it was a small chance, and it turned out that the improvement we did see with the glasses wasn't quite enough. I feel confident that we gave it a worthy effort {Maddie was very good about wearing her glasses like she was supposed to}, so it makes the decision for surgery a little easier. 

I was so proud of my sweet girl, for being brave {and cooperative} in wearing her mask and getting screened at the hospital entrance. These are such strange times, but I am thankful for my brave girl. It definitely helped that everyone else around us was wearing a mask, because there was no way I would have convinced her otherwise haha. So now the task is to prepare her for surgery...

Eli was up next! We have been taking him to the original pediatric ophthalmologist {non-surgeon} every 6 months or so to monitor the vision in his right eye. Poor kid has terrible vision, so his glasses prescription is pretty strong. But apparently his right eye is still struggling to see properly. We have been patching for 3-4 hours a day for several months, and there just hasn't been any improvement. So our next step is most likely vision therapy. We are still waiting to get details on that, as we are unsure if he is too young for it, and we don't know what that will look like in these times of COVID-19.

Eli was really brave too! He had no problem wearing his mask, which was good, because he had to wear it longer than Maddie did. We will wait to get more details on vision therapy, but in the meantime, we will continue patching.

It's pretty difficult to keep a 3 year old from touching everything around them, but it helped that I only had one to contain at each appointment :)