A Constant Hazard

My daughter and I are in Detroit tonight.   We flew up today so she can be seen by her retina surgeon tomorrow morning.   He may remove the hematoma in her left eye, hopefully giving her the ability to see something again.     He may wait and work on the right eye’s scar tissue or he may do nothing at all.   

I’m personally in favor of him doing something.   My daughter is just a hazard to herself all the time. Her cane training isn’t far enough along for her to keep a cane for general use, although my husband and I are thinking she might need one over the summer and, well, now if her vision stays the way it is.   The reason she doesn’t have one yet is because they are very easy to misuse and once bad habits are made, they’re very hard to break. 

Our travel today involved a lot of holding my hand as we went through the airport, car rental, hotel, swimming pool, restaurant, etc.   I got a better sense of how very bad my daughter’s vision is right now—she will run into anything and everything.   I had to yell, “STOP!” multiple times to prevent her from walking straight into something right in front of her. 

She can’t see colors either—she wanted to play with some of the rocks out in front of Red Robin where we ate diner.   The rocks were volcanic and very vibrant in color but she couldn’t tell a white from a black from a red rock.   

There was one game on her iPad she was able to do reasonably well, Toca Boo, which is a black screen with a white ghost on it.   You control the ghost and try to hide behind furniture in the dark in rooms and scare your family members (you’re really a child wearing a sheet).    She was doing fairly well finding and moving around the white blob on the black screen.   But seeing walls directly in front of her?   That’s another story. 

My daughter is apparently coping well with the loss of vision if her wish as the threw a penny into the airport fountain is any indication.   As she launched the penny high into the air she said, “I wish we could have a pterodactyl right now!”

The Big Boy Update:  We called my son when we got her and the first thing he said is, “what did you get me for my present?”   I explained how that made me sad that he didn’t miss me, all he wanted to know was if we’d gotten him something.   I think he understood, but I know it’s hard when you’re six-years-old.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter told my husband this morning, “okay, dad, you do not look great when you do not have a shower.”