Will's First Pair of Glasses

Wayyyyy back in July, I took Will to the pediatrician for his 4 year well visit (you know - 3 months after he turned 4, because I'm on top of it like that).  He got the necessary before-school vaccine boosters and they also gave him the hearing & vision screening.  First up was the hearing portion, which he passed with no problems.  Next, they gave him a vision screening which consisted of Will standing on one side of the 10ft long room and the nurse standing on the opposite side with a black and white flip chart of images.  He read them off quickly as she flipped through them until she got to the last page with the smallest images.  He hesitated and then tried to walk closer to her.  She sweetly instructed him to go back to the wall and try again.  He told her "I can't see them.  If you let me come closer, I can tell you!"  So she asked him to cover his left eye and try again - nothing.  He couldn't see them.  She asked him to cover his right eye and try - well this time he read them right off.  She smiled and said he did fine and that he passed the requirements for the vision screening.

When the pediatrician came in, he verified that Will did in fact pass the vision screening, but that I may want to follow up with a routine eye exam, because he did seem to have difficulties with his right eye.  We came home and I made Will an appointment at the local optometrist's office here in our small town.  Two weeks later, I took Will for his first eye exam, thinking Gosh - this is probably overkill.  I hope he doesn't have to have glasses.  SURELY I would have noticed he was having issues if they were that severe.

The exam was awful.  He FREAKED out when they dilated his eyes and he couldn't see.  He was very curious about the medical equipment and the processes that they were using, and the staff was very impatient and intolerant with him.  They kept giving him stern instructions and eventually, after asking me 1,000 times - "You've never noticed him squinting?  You've never seen him sit too close to the TV? (of course not lady - our TV is above our fireplace) You've never seen him lean too close to his schoolwork? (of course I have - he's learning to write.  MOST of the children is his class lean into their work)" they determined the exam to be finished.  After an hour of making me feel like the worst, most irresponsible parent in the world, they quickly wrote Will a prescription for full-time eye glasses and then sent me out to pick out glasses.  He was crying because he couldn't see and I felt terrible.  The lady working in the office said "We just don't see that many children."  That was my clue - I just gathered him up and left.  We needed a second opinion.

I called his pediatrician's office and told them I wanted a referral to the best pediatric optometrist in the area.  They were very helpful (as usual) and gave me the number of a doctor associated with Scottish Rite, one of Atlanta's leading children's hospitals.  (Now in no way am I indicating that Will's eyes are so bad that he needs the best of the best.  But call me crazy - he is one of the three miracles that God trusted me with, and I wanted someone who could deal with his fear, his questions, and could tell me about his eyes even if Will wouldn't cooperate during the exam.)  I called immediately and the next available appoinment was three months out.  I scheduled the appointment and we spent the next three months living life as usual and trying our best to forget that awful experience.

Well this past Tuesday was the day - our appointment with our new eye doctor.  Will was very nervous.  If he asked once, he asked 1,000 times if they were going to put that "juice" in his eyes.  The staff was very nice and courteous to Will.  They made jokes, showed him magic tricks and made him feel safe.  They asked him to read the chart and he did fine until it got to the smaller objects.  When she asked him to use his right eye, I saw the hesitation.  He finally turned his head away from the chart and when she asked him if he could see the picture, he simply shook his little head.  She asked him to try with his left eye and he read them off to her.  She went back to the right eye and again he sat silently until he finally admitted he couldn't see the pictures.  She praised him anyway and told him that he did a great job.  He perked up immediately.  She put the "juice" in his eye and he cried again.  At this office though, instead of sending him back out into a bright waiting room, they sent him to a dark room where a movie was showing.  Here we are waiting on the doctor to come in.  Notice how thrilled Will looks:

The eye doctor came in next.  He showed Will a new magic trick and then got to work.  He examined his eyes, and worked silently with his different lenses - switching them in and out and in and out.  After 10 minutes of talking to Will and going between lenses, he put the chart back up on the wall, put "magic eyes" on Will and asked him to try to read the chart again - and that's where I saw it for my own eyes - with the lenses, Will read every line - even the smallest ones.  The doctor was satisfied and wrote up the prescription.  He told me the original prescription written for Will was not nearly as strong as it should have been.  He right eye has moderate astigmatism.  He said that with a 4 year old, if the child were only borderline, he would not prescribe full-time glasses because the reward doesn't always outweigh the work - the hassle of getting a child to wear them and the expense of replacing pair after pair when they inevitably break them.  BUT - he said Will is just over the line and needs full-time glasses.  He says, without them, over time Will's right eye would get so bad that he would need a patch on the his left eye to force the brain to retrain his right.  And that was all I needed to hear.

I'm sooooo glad we got a second opinion.  I trust this doctor and we're going to do what he recommends to keep Will's eye health in top shape.  Did he completely disagree with the first doctor?  No, but he did make a better assessment and unlike the first doctor, actually tested the lenses on him before writing an estimated (and ultimately incorrect) prescription.  And it was nice that they didn't berate me over missing the signs.  In fact, they didn't even ask me if I had noticed those things.

We went yesterday and picked out his glasses.  He's not crazy about wearing them so he wasn't too interested in picking them out either.  He eventually landed on a little pair of Nike specs that seem pretty durable and bend in both directions at the leg joints.  We also picked up a cute wire-framed pair in a silver color as his back-up pair.  The lady at the store said he would most certainly break and/or lose his glasses frequently until he's much older and recommended a back-up pair.  Depending on how involved in sports Will wants to be, we will probably also invest in a pair of sport glasses, similar to Oakleys, but with prescription lenses to keep from breaking his every day glasses.  Will actually loved those glasses the best, but they are not very easy on mommy's eye for every day wear.  So we'll cross that bridge when we get there.  Here he is in his "primary" pair - the Nike's (of course, his exact glasses haven't come in yet, maybe by Monday...):

I HATE that Will has to have glasses.  No one wants to hear that their child has been having issues.  ESPECIALLY when I didn't see any warning signs.  I worry that he'll feel odd or out of place because neither myself nor Brandon wear glasses (I actually do need them but I haven't had an eye exam in years).  I pray that his buddies at school don't make fun of him - this year and the years to come.  It would break my heart if that happens.  I also hope that he learns to take care of them - little eye glasses are quite expensive!  I have already made myself an eye exam appointment for an updated prescription. I'm hoping that if I wear mine, Will will feel less out of place, and maybe even learn to take better care of them.  Let me know if anyone has been through this with their little one.  We could certainly use your advice!