It’s been a while since I’ve updated you on Penny’s glasses. She hasn’t been wearing them. Not very much anyway. Every once in a while, or when someone asks where her glasses are. We did manage to keep them on her for well over an hour when we saw my parents out at the lake. But she was being held and entertained for the whole time and that’s why we could get away with it. On my own, during the day it sometimes feels pointless. By the time I remember to put them on her, she’s getting tired and starting to rub her eyes. And when I do remember to put them on sooner, I need to be sitting right there with her so I can play with her to distract her.
Hmm, that makes me sound like I don’t play with Penny unless I have to. I don’t have to play with her very much. She’s very self sufficient, especially now that she’s mobile. I can put her down on the floor and she journeys from one end of the room to the other and back (16 times). She stops to play with whatever toys I happen to have put out today. She stops to play with Hershey’s toys (yes, I’m THAT parent who lets her play with dirty old dog toys). She plays with my shoes, and ends up with a filthy black face. We have a set of 2 portable phones, of which I’ve taken the battery out of one and given it to her as a toy. She plays with an old remote we’ve taken the batteries out of. She tries to play with daddy’s Xbox. She drums songs on the TV base with her feet. She plays with the strip of sunshine on the floor. She tries to crawl under the couch (it’s a good 8-10 inches off the floor). She tries to escape to Downthehall Land or Kitchenville every time I leave the gate open. We do play… she makes noises which I copy. She does funny things and then looks at me when I laugh. Then she smiles. We have our own way of playing, and it doesn’t usually involve me sitting on the floor, in her face, trying to keep her hands away from her glasses.
Anyway, we had an appointment at the ophthalmologist’s office yesterday. They dilated Penny’s eyes slightly, which they haven’t done since her very first appointment before her surgeries. It didn’t even faze her! Then they brought out the big guns. By which I mean that they used new tests to assess her vision which haven’t been used for her before. The only one I actually know the name of is the Teller Acuity Cards. These are long, rectangular cards in a lovely shade of gray. Somewhere on the card is a box with alternating stripes of white and another gray that is just about the same as the card. As they turn it towards Penny, they look to see that her eyes go to where the stripes are. The top cards in the rack start with wider stripes and get smaller as you work toward the bottom. The smallest stripe our orthoptist used was one Penny had trouble seeing. She couldn’t see the stripes as verticals, but when the lady turned the card sideways Penny could see them as horizontal. She also used a prism to force Penny to see double, and used a thick plastic card that had one selection on it in the foreground while everything else was in the background. I don’t think that one affected Penny at all yet.
Once the doctor checked her eyes, he determined a number of things:
- Penny’s eyes have healed wonderfully!
- She has NOT grown any membranes, and probably will not at this point. If memory serves me, there was like an 80% chance that she WOULD grow membranes and need them zapped out with a laser.
- Her right pupil is very teardrop shaped. The point of the teardrop is almost to the edge of her iris. This will not be fixed until she is 8 or 9 years old and can sit still for a laser zap.
- Her prescription either reverted to what her current lenses are, or they have not changed enough to warrant a new set of lenses until her next visit. But he anticipates needing a new one then.
- Penny does not need to go back for another appointment until January!
When we go back for her next appointment, Penny will be a year old! How exciting! I wonder what assessment tools they will use then? Now I just need to put her glasses on a little more often, and convince her to keep them on a little bit longer.
