Eye Patching

Over Thanksgiving, Cody mentioned Harper's lazy eye.  I had no idea what he was talking about, I had never seen it.  While at Thanksgiving dinner, I mentioned it and almost everyone in the family agreed that they had seen it.  Kristen said we had even talked about it when Harper was a baby.  We had a check up with her pediatrician who confirmed it and sent us to an Opthamalogist in Plano.  We saw the dr before Christmas and she recommended surgery because both eyes seemed to turn inward and cross.  She had us patch her good eye before the surgery to help it from getting worse.  She diagnosed her with Amblyopia due to Strabismus in both eyes.  We decided to get a second opinion with the dr a lot of friends of ours go to from Highland Village.  We saw him after Christmas and he was hesitant to go straight to surgery.  He diagnosed her with Esotropia in only her right eye, which is a precursor to Amblyopia and has no vision loss yet.  So he suggested we continue patching and set her up with glasses to try and straighten her eyes.   So we are going to try that route first.  Harper did not like the patch at all at first.  She now tolerates it some.  She wears it for two hours and we have to keep her busy and distracted the whole time if we don't want her to whine and complain.  She loves these sticker books where you can make people's faces and it seemed like a pretty easy reward for her being a big girl and wearing her patch.  So she does those most days.  And I'm thankful that she started patching over Christmas break where Cody is home and can help distract her.  It's been awesome.  One day, we decided to decorate Christmas cookies and she did a great job.  Most of them were more icing and sprinkles than cookie afterwards, but she loved doing it.  We are hoping and praying for good results and thankful that she is a trooper!