Here's the word- Aaron is wearing an eye patch! (Well not right now b/c he's sleeping and I ran out of patches) but he has worn them every day for 2 weeks. Here's the scoop:Aaron has infantile esotropia [Infantile esotropia is an ocular condition of early onset in which one or either eye turns inward. It is a specific sub-type of esotropia] Click for wikipedia info , which means he has a squinty eye/ esotropic eye. More on esotropia (Pronounced ee-so-tro-fia)
We noticed almost from birth that Aaron had a droopy eyelid (called ptosis=fallen) on his left side We also noticed his left eye sometimes looked like it might be a lazy eye. I asked a pediatrician about it in November and she told me that I could tell if Aaron's eye was lazy if the light reflecting back to me in his eyes was hitting in different places. She and I looked and thought that he didn't have a lazy eye. But she recommended an opthomologist group at Primary Childrens Hospital for his eyelid. I didn't call right away and didn't think much of it until one day it just hit me that I needed to call. I made the call in December and got an appt for February 3rd with Dr. David Dries.
Bryan took him for his appointment and came back almost 3 hours later. Aaron's diagnosis is infantile esotropia (squinting) which has led his left eye to develop some amblyopia (lazy eye). The doctor suggested wearing a patch for 2 weeks for 8 hours a day to see if we could train his weak eye to get stronger. The doctor ruled out any brain-to-eye disorders and after doing a bunch of tests concluded his eye's vision was okay, his brain training was the problem.
We did the patch as best we could. Because of his naps and sleep schedule, 8 hours is about Aaron's whole day and so we tried doing it all the time. He cried for the first two times we tried putting it on and so we took it off after a few minutes. But the next day we put it on first thing in the morning and he did great with it. The patches didn't always stay completely on and we were always trying to push the corner of the patch by his nose down flat. Even my girls helped out. I think the patches maybe got damaged because we flew to Texas with them in the bottom part of the airplane that maybe the cold temperature affected them.
We went in to the doctor for a follow up visit last Thursday the 18th and he said the patching worked! The eye is working! And as a bonus, the eyelid is lifting too as he is trying to use that eye. So the good news is Aaron has 2 eyes that see well. The downside is that they don't work together. When Aaron wants to see something on his left side, he uses his left eye and visa versa. He doesn't have depth perception. I tried using only one eye for a few minutes for the last few days to see how it would be not to have depth perception- it's uncomfortable and tricky.
The doctor now has us patching 6 days a week, patching each eye every other day. Right eye on MWF and Left on TTHS with Sundays off. He said in order to get the eyes to work together we need to do eye muscle surgery. He will cut 1 eye muscle and reattach it further back on the eye to allow both eyes to move together. He says that learning to see is like learning a language and the sooner you do it, the easier it is to train your brain. We have scheduled eye surgery for Friday April 23rd. He will undergo general anesthesia but hopefully at the end of it all, no more lazy eye and yes depth perception.
My mother-in-law had lazy eye issues when she was a child and had surgery at age 3 and yet still had lazy eye in high school and it was very unhappy how it affected her self image. Bryan also has lazy eye and did patching as a child. He still has his lazy eye, but it only bothers him when he gets tired.
On Monday nights we usually hang out as a family and do something together. Last Monday it was 'girls get to use the camera' fun. Here's what we came up with-
For some reason Bryan's mouth looks really big in this pic, almost like Scream. And yes I have spaghetti sauce on my shirt from dinner. 
