Eye Patch

Alright, so 3 months ago I informed everyone of our newest battle, the eye patch.

3 months later here we are. Last Friday (yeah, I know, late update) we went down to Milwaukee for a check-up. I was already dreading this appointment because the last time we were there our head surgeon told us "Come back in one year!" yay! Then the eye doctor told us "Come back in 2 months!" Boo! I originially had to work at my internship so I was just tuning out the entire appointment. In the end, the one day of the 12 weeks of my internship I was given off, was this day.

Grandpa, Brode, Daddy and I drove down to Milwaukee bright and early for a 9:30 appointment. A 20 minute, 9:30 appointment. It gets old - trust me. I was really looking to make some progress on our goals and future treatments at this appointment, but just didn't know what to expect. We had been patching Brode's eye for just over 2 months and were meeting with his ophthamologists consultant to gauge where his current vision is now. The first appointment he had vision of 20/25 in one eye and 20/50 in the other. We patched the strong eye to strengthen the weak one. After doing a matching game we determined his vision IS...... 20/25 in one eye, 20/40 in the other. Ugh. The progress is good and they were extremely surprised how well Brode sat, matched, and took direction (proud mother right here - yes!) but the next answer what now what I wanted hear.

More patching. Our ultimate goal is to perform surgery on his eye muscles so that he tracks from left to right correctly. Muscle weakness determination and surgery cannot be performed until they know he is seeing properly. Therefore, the 20/40 eye needs to come down to 20/25 so they are symmetrical. 3 more months of patching it is until we reassess. Other bad news, once we reassess we need to start weaning. Brode didn't breastfeed, he jumped straight from the bottle to the cup, and he never had a nuk, I've never had to wean and I didn't plan on it! They'll slowly lower the number of hours he needs to wear it a day until they are sure that he can sustain the 20/25 vision or better with the weak eye. If he can't, they'll bump it back up and keep trying. This calls for many appointments down to Milwaukee and back to keep measuring.

I'm taking it harder than Brode, and I don't even have to wear the patch. I put it on his eye at 7am and send him off to day care where he wears it for 4-6 hours, they take it off and it's done. He has even gotten much better at wearing it, there are no tears to put it on, and I've gotten a "Will you put my eye patch on before my shoes?" I'm sure we'll get through 3 months easily. We've stocked up on our boxes of patches and are still just working away with them.

Always remember, things could be much worse!

Ok, next time a more exciting post. I've got a good hodge-podge of pictures to share, including Brode and the cinnamon roll bigger than his head! Check back!