Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Camo Pirate




AJ saw his new ophthalmologist, Dr. P, yesterday. The appointment went well. It was decided that AJ will have the surgery to correct his esotropia (crossing of the eyes). Dr. P wants to wait until after his cochlear implant surgery. In the meantime, we must continue to patch. We alternate (Monday left eye, Tuesday right eye, etc.) eyes, patching for a minimum of 1 hour/day. We need to continue the patching so that AJ does not lose his vision in either eye.

Dr. P also shared that although AJ can look at us "straight on" he does not use both of his eyes together. There are four muscles around each eye. One on the top, on on the bottom, and one on each side. The muscles towards his nose, on both eyes, pull in too much. Therefore, he's only able to use one eye at a time.

We also found out that he is near-sided and has a slight stigmatism. After the surgery, he will wear glasses to force his eyes to focus. The surgery is a relatively simple procedure, and is done in Day Surgery at Children's. First the ears, then the eyes...

Above are pictures of our camo pirate. I realized no one except for AJ's Dad and I have ever seen him with his cool patches on!


2 comments:

  1. I got my asnwer now. The surgery for the esotropia is not bad at all. One thing you will need to find out is how much correction were they able to do. Mak only had a correction of 65%. She is also near sighted with astigmatism. Fortunately there are many ways too work with this disorder, although some are a little disheartening. Mak will be getting Progreesive lens bifocals soon to help her eyes stay straight.

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  2. We aren't concerned with him having the surgery, we're just glad that it will be corrected. His original ophth wanted to "wait" and patch to see if he would self-correct. Children with CP often self-correct over time. She was worried about going in, correcting, and then having him correct on his own. That would cause an additional surgery to then undercorrect. That Mak, she's such a cutie :) Thanks for sharing...

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