It's been 3 months since Barrett's first appointment with the pediatric ophthalmologist. Today was his first follow up visit. Barrett has been doing great wearing his glasses (he wears them all day except for naps). He's actually asked for them several times which led us to believe that they help him to see better. Although we thought they might be helping with his farsightedness, we also have been very aware that his esotropia (his left eye crossing) has been gradually getting worse.
After examining his eyes, Dr. P informed us that surgery is inevitable. He said that Barrett is not using his left eye very much right now and that he does not want to wait longer than 2-4 months before doing the surgery. By performing surgery on Barrett's eye, he will be able to straighten his eye out which will cause his brain to begin using that eye again. He should regain full use of that eye, however, time is of the essence. If we had not caught the esotropia this early, there's a chance that he could've lost full use of his left eye.
Just so that we know we've exhausted all the non-invasive options, Dr. P is asking us to patch Barrett's good eye for an hour every day until our pre-op appointment. Patching the good eye will force Barrett to use his left eye and will give those muscles a workout. If the muscle strength in his bad eye drastically improves by his pre-op appointment, then we'll postpone surgery and keep patching. Dr. P does not expect the patching to be effective, however, he wants to make sure we've given it a good try.
As of right now the surgery is scheduled for the end of September. Dr. P said that 3 out of 10 children end up needing 2 surgeries and 1 out of 10 kids need more than 2 surgeries. Will you pray with us that Barrett's eye will be able to be corrected with one surgery? Dr. P also told us that his goal is to have Barrett totally out of glasses and hopes that both eyes will function as they were designed to work. What an exciting day that will be!!!
9 comments:
Prayers for Barrett! Keep us updated on here.
Praying. Jessica Schmidt's daughter had the same thing (I think...I know she had a lazy eye and her eyes would get stuck crossed.) When she was a bit older than Barrett she had corrective surgery and she's been great ever since (this was probably 6 years ago).
I'll be praying!
We are praying for sweet Barrett! Love you!
I am praying for Barrett. Tell him I love him, he is such a brave 2 yr old. I know God will watch over him and you all also. I hope the patch works with no surgery but God knows what is best.
oh wow, I didn't realize how serious his eye condition is. we will be praying for his sweet little eyes to be fixed soon and for the surgery to be a success!
I will be praying for little sweet Barrett. Tell him that Grandmommy loves him and knows that God will watch over him.
Prayers from here too.
Will keep it in prayer! This brings back memories. I infact have some vision damage in my left eye and I wore glasses that blurred my good eye all day long forcing my left eye to work. It helped.
They did not do surgery "back" then.
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