Thursday, February 01, 2007

Pirate Boy


I'll have to start this post by back tracking to Luke's 4 month checkup. Our family doctor, Dr. Jones, recommended that I take him to a Pediatric Opthamologist because she was concerned that his right eye turned in a bit occasionally. So I took him in to see Dr. Jensen a week later and she found that both of his eyes would turn in but mainly it was the right eye. She said that it is actually better that he has the problem in both eyes rather then it only being the right eye that turns in. I don't remember and cannot say the technical term for it but my little baby is a tad bit cross eyed. The only way to correct it is with surgery.


Yes, surgery. My little baby boy has to have surgery to move the muscles behind his eyes so that they point straight all the time. He had another appointment this past Thursday with Dr. Jensen and she said that he is looking great. He is not cross eyed constantly but without the surgery he probably would be eventually. Dr. Jensen said it is much better to get it done before he turns a year otherwise when he got old enough it could effect him playing most sports and maybe his driving. He is still too young to have the surgery so I'm have to bring him in again in April and hopefully then we will set the date for it sometime in June.

I have talked to so many people about it and everyone says the surgery isn't a big deal and is actually quite common. It only takes about an hour and is outpatient surgery. I'm not as upset and nervous about the actual surgery as I was back in November but I still wish that he didn't have to have it. Dr. Jensen said that the recovery for a baby is actually only a day or two which is encouraging. I don't have too many details yet about the actual surgery but I'll be finding all that out in April when I take him back in and we set the date.

So back to the picture... he has to (or is supposed to) wear an eye patch on his left eye (his dominant eye) for 30-45 minutes every day in order to give his right eye a chance to be the dominant eye. Since he is so young when his eyes do cross his brain just gets rid of one of the images he sees so he won't see double. Which means that if his left eye gets too strong then he could completely lose vision in his right eye because the image won't be as strong as the one coming from his left eye. Since we don't want that to happen (duh) we have to put the eye patch on him and as you can see from the super fast picture I took, he HATES it. That was like the only 3 seconds he was not trying to rub the eye patch off. So every time he wears it I have to hold both his hands down plus entertain him to keep him from crying the whole time and so he will actually look around with his one eye. The whole problem is actually a brain thing not an eye thing but since they can't operate on his brain, they just fix the mechanics of it by moving the muscles behind his eyes. One of my friends just recently graduated from Optometry school so she has been such a help to me as far as information goes.

Cameryn has been a super punk this week. She was good on Monday when she had a play date with her cousin Katelyn (technically my cousins daughter) but every day after that she was definatly acting the part of the terrible two's. I have really had to work on my patience this week just so I won't completely freak out and yell at her constantly. Though I have to say that it is not a normal thing for Cameryn to behave badly. She is mostly a very nice, happy and helpful girl.

I do have an adorable story about her that happened last Sunday on our drive into church. I have burned a couple of CD's for her with songs from Disney movies or Sesame Street to listen to in the car but just so I don't go crazy listening to them constantly, I also burned a few CD's with songs from musicals like, Sound of Music, Oklahoma, and West Side Story (to name a few). Well on the way to church I had the radio tuned to classical music (since it was Sunday) and all the sudden I heard her singing (which she does alot- yes I know she adorable). Usually when she sings it's BahBah Black Sheep or Twinkle Little Star, songs like that, but today she was singing Maria from West Side Story. She was singing "Maria, Maria, I just met a girl named Maria and suddenly I found Maria, Maria I just kissed a girl named Maria and suddenly I found Maria..." It was so cute but I couldn't let her know that I was watching/listening so I stared straight ahead. Oh I love my little girl, she is so smart and silly.

Having two kids is definatly very interesting.

2 comments:

Gina said...

I am sorry to hear about Luke's eyes. I thought it was just the infant cross eyed thing once in awhile. Liam was crossed for SO long! I loved it though and now I miss it! That is great that it's been caught early. Sounds like you are fully educated on all the details of it. I hope everything goes well.

Sorry your sweet little girl is being a punk. Liam has moments like that already, but most of the time he is very mild. I LOVED that story about her singing SO well! What a smarty pants!

Anonymous said...

I love the patch! It makes him look like a tough guy. It's too bad that he has to have surgery, but I'm thankful that they figured it out sooner rather than later. My little girl is being a punk too, I think it goes in phases. You just have to hang in there and enjoy their cuteness (when she's older her attitude won't be so cute.) Heidi