The Refraction

Today we got a refraction on my daughter’s eyes.   I’m still in a bit of a state of shock.  I didn’t think it was going to ever happen because every time we got close to being able to get a true prescription on her along many of the steps in this journey of vision, something would change.   Typically that something would be downhill or backtrack us or just the message we had to wait <insert non-specific amount of months here>.

But it happened.   There was no bad news really in the exam under anesthesia today (done locally by our favorite pediatric ophthalmologist).   The left eye has a little hematoma left but not much that hasn’t settled.  The fovus looks good and the optic nerve looks healthy.   The retina is attached aside from some perimeter folds that are likely never going to reattach because of some stretching that occurred over time.    Her pressure was great and there just wasn’t any real bad news about the left eye.

The right eye is confusing.  Can it see at all?  No.  But it’s completely blocked again with scar tissue internally so she can’t see out.   We’ll find out more on that the next time we see her retina surgeon in two months.  Oh, and we’re dropping down drops from twelve times a day to only four.   Which I swear feels like we got a life sentence reduced.

So about that refraction… My daughter had been preferring her +17 prescription lenses for many months now.   It turns out her actual refraction is +18.5, which means across the +12, +17 and +22 lenses she was picking the ones that worked the best.    I had her some glasses made this afternoon at the +18.5 and they’ll have some bifocals ready for her next week that add a +21.5 in the bottom corner.

And if you didn’t just catch that, I said I had glasses made for her this afternoon—something I didn’t think was possible.   Everywhere I’ve talked to has problems making lenses at that high a prescription and when the can make them it’s a long process to get them sent to a lab, make them, check them for quality and then have them back to me in three weeks.    But I found a place locally with an in-house lab, better prices than what I was being quoted elsewhere and the materials to make the high prescription my daughter needs—in three hours, for $129.

So overall, a great day.   Tomorrow we’ll have the +18.5 lenses and I’ll see if my daughter can tell a difference.   We’re not sure it will be drastic or even noticeable, but I will take any improvement we can get.

The Big Boy Update:  My son will make a sound, typically a moaning or grunting sound and ask us which character from Minecraft it is.   I don’t know the game well but when he says which he’s imitating and we hear it, he’s spot on.   It’s kind of eerie.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted to play Minecraft too and asked me to load it onto her iPad.   She’s also played it on the Xbox with the big television in the basement.   And she can see things when she does like she’s spinning around and looking at the sky or that she’s stuck in a corner.    She’s not doing a lot of useful things in the game other than playing for ten minutes with a lot of help from her brother and mostly getting lost, but she’s not giving up.