The morning she woke up for her new glasses I pulled her into bed with me and took these pictures with my phone. Unknown to me the ophthalmologist would be calling later that day changing the way Aria sees forever.
Many people see Aria's adorable little face in glasses and ask me how I knew she needed glasses. So here is her story. I didn't know. It started last fall 2011 when she was just one. Aria would space off every once in a while and her eyes just didn't look right. As rude as it sounds she would look like a little retarded baby. I have no prejudice against those sweet little handicapped angels. I just knew my baby looked really off. I would call her name or clap and she would stop her dazed look and look right at me and everything seems just normal. I shrugged it off and didn't know what to think of it. Because when I got her to she would looked at me with both her eyes. It also didn't happen very often. And Marcus never noticed it.
A few months later around Christmas/New Years season I was in Pocatello celebrating the holidays with my side of the family. My amazing sister in law Sara noticed Aria's eyes and said that she had a crossed eye. She told me one of her friends had a child like that, and that it was an easy fix. I was amazed and could totally see that her left eye would get lazy and cross in towards her nose. So thanks a million to my Sara!!
A few months later in the spring I finally made an appointment with Aria's pediatrician to see what he would say. Before I went I looked up some info in the internet to see what her crossed eye was all about. I read all about the differences and causes of a crossed eye, wandering eye, and lazy eye. And all the prognosis's for them which included glasses, patches, and surgury. I also remember my cousin had a lazy eye, and he had to have a patch. Marcus' brother also had a lazy eye and had an eye patch. We went in to meet with her doctor, and I had a lot of anxieties that came with us also. He observed her and asked questions. He took about 10 minutes and wrote us a referral to an ophthalmologist. He told us that she has a crossed eye. When she is looking around it tracks a little slower than her right eye, but that she can still see out of it. In order to protect a child's eye sight, if an eye doesn't move with the other eye your brain will see double, and then your brain will turn off that eye so you can't see out of it. The sooner you catch it the better so they can fix it before your brain turns it off. He is such a great doctor he even showed us his eyes where he had surgery and one of his won't turn inwards at all. He said we caught it at a good time too.
I call the ophthalmologist's office and got an appointment that was around 6-8 weeks later. June 12th the day after Marcus' birthday. I skyped Marcus parents (on a mission in England) and asked them about their experience 30 years earlier with their kid. Matthew ended up having surgery. I also asked Matthew about how he sees. His vision is 20/20.
We took the family to her eye appointment (always an adventure). The doctor there was also amazing. After her eyes were dilated he would just put lenses up to her eyes and look at how her eyes would react. He told us that in both of her eyes she is extremely far sighted. He told us that she works so hard to see up close and her right eye dominates, so he left eye pretty much can't keep up and so it crosses inwards. He was confident that glasses would fix her eyes. Once again we have wonderful doctors, and he told us his 12 year old daughter has the same thing. And that when she takes off her glasses for swimming and such that her eye will still cross in.
After her appointment we sat down in their small shop and checked out glasses. They have amazing Mira-flex glasses for babies and small children. They bend and move and you pretty much can't destroy or break them. We had to get the smallest possible size that they make (my baby was still 1). Plus she has an itty bitty head. When she was going in her first year for measurements her head was on the 0% for size. We picked out the lens shape and the frame color. We HAD to go with a pearl pink! And then dropped $155 for those babies.
A few weeks later they called. Her glasses had finally come in June 26, 2012. She was so good with them. She loved looking in the mirror when they were adjusting them for her. When we came home she kept walking around really slow observing her enviroment. She kept walking with her head down. I don't thing she had ever seen a carpet fiber, or blade of grass in her life.
Her frames are quite indistructable but her lenses with the extra no scratch layer is another question. After she got her glasses the doctor wanted to see her back in two weeks to see how her eyes were doing. By the time we got there her lenses were already scratched up and we ordered new lenses. Thank goodness they are guarnteed. She has now been through three sets of lenses, and we should really order her some new ones again.
But the best news was when we brought her back for her two week check up that her eye doesn't cross anymore, and both her eyes are working together now. She has had an adjustment keeping her glasses on. The doctor told us that she would actually like wearing them because she will like being able to see. And after about the first month that has been true. But she does throw them off when she is having a fit, and we regularly are looking for her glasses. So half of the time you will see her in them, and half of the time you might not.
