Met with the opthortist (I think). Didn't get to see the eye doctor of the awesome name on this visit. Bummer.
J was a riot in the waiting room. We had the whole place to ourselves and Ice Age was playing on the TV. He asked for The Wiggles (naturally) and I told him we are going to watch this cartoon. He latched onto the word "cartoon" and tried it out in every voice he could think of. J was also giggling maniacally at the word "outlet." As in, "Please don't touch the outlet." *more fits of giggles*
But, the second we were called back, the giggles were gone. He kept saying, "Open the door, get in Daddy's new car." (Daddy got a new car from work two weeks ago, it will probably be the "new" car for a long time as far as J is concerned.) He sat on my lap and the tech covered J's right eyeglass lens with a patch and asked him to label an apple, circle, house and square on a computer screen across the room. J latched onto the house and square, but was able to ID the others too, in between sobbing and yelling, "Cover off eye!" Same story for the left eye.
The opthortist feels that J's left eye is 20/80 and that the testing wasn't accurate for the right eye because he was so freaked by the patch. But, if there ends up being a huge discrepancy between the two eyes on our next visit, we'll need to take stronger action. We're currently attempting to patch his right eye 2 hours a day in order to get that left eye to work better. The concern is that if he relies too much on the right eye (which is ironically the one that wanders, but the left eye is the one with ptosis), he'll lose function in the left eye.
If he continues to really fight the patching, we may use some drops to block that right eye. Typically, they use atropine, but it's contraindicated in kids with Down syndrome because of potential heart issues. J doesn't have any heart issues, but he does have the trisomy part. She did say that there are other drops to try, but they aren't as effective. We head back Feb 4.
Because the "blanket glasses" don't fit over the new rectangle glasses, I had to get inventive. I have the right lens covered with Kleenex, then band-aids and then a Wiggles sticker. The trick is to make sure he's not looking around the patch. But, with the new glasses fitting tighter against his head, it doesn't seem to be a problem so far.
Object du Jour: Toy catalogs! Wheeee!
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