No Swimming

My daughter has a lot of things going on with her vision.   She’s lost her sight, which is burden and stress enough for any one person, but she’s got other things to contend with beyond that that make her life even more frustrating on top of the main vision loss issue.

She has to sleep propped up because of the hematoma in her eye.   She’s doing fairly well with this, but it’s not something she likes to do.   She’s very compliant and has been trying to help as best she can, even though she changes position while she sleeps at night.

She has to do drops up to twelve times each day, sometimes only two drops and sometimes five drops across both eyes.   They sting, they interrupt her play time and she doesn’t like doing them.   She has to have her glasses cleaned regularly because she touches her glasses and gets all sorts of things on them—she’s trying to keep from touching them but it’s something hard for her not to do apparently.

She can’t be hit in the eye, which means lots of things she finds fun, like swinging on the swings with her friends is a highly hazardous situation.   If she could see and could avoid the large, heavy, fast moving objects it would be one thing but she’s operating completely blind right now, not even able to tell colors accurately, which means she’s a very big danger around swings.

And she can’t swim.   This is temporary because of the recent surgery, but it’s not fun for her because she loves to swim.   We’re visiting friends on the Chesapeake Bay this weekend and they have a pool, but she can’t get her head wet.     Again, she’s working with the limitations, but it’s sad and frustrating for her.

She is also bored.   She can’t do so many things other, sighted children can do and what she can and wants to do she needs help to do much of the time.   It’s hard as a parent to limit her while trying to keep her entertained and occupied at the same time.   Hopefully she’ll regain some of her vision and freedom soon, but for now she’s dealing with it the best she can—and somehow keeping a positive attitude throughout.

The Big Boy Update:  My son still likes to keep his headphones on a lot of the time, even when they’re not producing sound for him.   It’s a sensory deprivation thing that he sometimes likes, even when he’s eating or when other people are around and talking.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We were on our friend’s boat today and went under a bridge on the way to dinner.   This particular bridge makes very interesting sounds when cars go over it.   Our friend went back under it a second time and stopped so we could all hear the cars going overhead.   My daughter liked listening to the different pitches of the cars, made by vehicles going over the bridge at different speeds.