THANKFUL THURSDAY

Today I'm so very thankful for an eye screening at Grant's school (one I almost passed up because I thought "his eyes are fine."). I'm thankful for that screening because it detected a significant problem with his eyes which lead us to further examination by an eye doctor which has now led us to treatment for that condition. As best we understand, amblyopia, or "lazy eye" is a condition in which one eye did not develop normally during early childhood causing poor vision in that eye. Grant's cause of amblyopia is unequal focusing. If each eye has to focus a different amount to see clearly, the brain, which cannot focus each eye a different amount, will chose one eye to focus and the other will remain out of focus. The unfocused eye does not develop normally and amblyopia is the result. Since there is excellent sight in the other eye, it is almost impossible to detect without some type of examination. Looking back, now that we know, a lot of things are making sense. The plan of treatment right now is glasses for 30 days, then we go back to his doctor to see if there is any improvement. After a month, we will continue with glasses as well as patching the "good" eye thereby forcing the brain to use the "bad" eye to focus. If left untreated, the amblyopic eye eventually becomes so weak there is no vision in that eye.  However, with early detection and treatment, the outcome is positive.

Grant's vision was 20/200. That means that he would have to come up to 20 feet to see an object a person with normal vision could see at 200 feet. With his glasses on, he is seeing 20/80. His doctor is hopeful that within a month, he'll have him up to 20/60 with his glasses on, and only improve from there.

Please remember my little G-Man in your prayers. It is likely he'll have to wear a patch for a year, and the doctor was very upfront with us about how diligent we must be with this. Not only with the plan of treatment but also protecting the "good" eye while we work to make the other one better. He should know. He dealt with this exact same condition with his son at Grant's age, in the same eye, with the same vision. His son now wears one contact lens in his amblyopic eye with 20/30 vision.

We know and understand it could be so much worse, and we and his doctor are very optimistic about the outcome.
Here's my little man putting his glasses on for the first time:

I think he could model for Lens Crafters! ;) He is taking it like a champ too. I think he's excited to actually be able to see good for the first time. :) If there is one of my children who can be responsible with something like this and really understand starting at Point A and doing this and that to get to Point B, it's Grant. We were in the car headed home yesterday, and I was asking if he could see good. I said, "Hey Grant, can you see good? Like, can you see my face good?" He said, "YEAH, Mommy, I can! You look like you have dust on your face." 

I'm still not exactly sure what that means but we sure got a good laugh out of it. And hey, at least he can see my dusty face! :)

And give thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 5:20