For those of you wondering, yes, I'm still alive. :-) It's been a crazy few months, and I reached a point where I had to decide which things to keep up with, and I finally decided the blog had to wait. However, I'm not forgoing it forever...just temporarily. I have high hopes of getting back to blogging after the Christmas season is past...but we'll see. :-)
Anyway, I did want to give you an update on Elli's eyes. We had Elli's latest ophthalmologist appointment today. No signs of glaucoma or cataracts yet, so that was very positive. We had noticed some changes in her vision, which Ms. April and Ms. Katie had noticed as well. Thankfully, the doctors noticed them, too. There were apparently multiple issues causing this decline in her vision, and I'm glad we have doctors for these kinds of things, because I definitely wouldn't have guessed the #1 issue.
1) She is apparently not using her right eye much, which is causing the decline in vision that I've noticed. (I thought she was using the right eye and not the left...until they explained it to me. Now I realize that they're right. The technical term for what she's doing is "cross-fixating.") So, they want us to patch her left eye 2 hours a day for the next month, and then we go back for a checkup. The goal is to teach her brain to again recognize the images from both eyes.
2) She also has discovered the null point for her nystagmus (the point where her eyes don't bounce and wiggle so much, thus being the best point for her vision), and unfortunately, it's way down and to the right (which doesn't coexist well with using mostly her left eye for vision!). It used to be mildly down and slightly to the right, but it has apparently changed recently. When she looks to her left, the eyes bounce much more, which explains why she doesn't seem to notice things that are on her left side - it's too hard to see.
Once the patching does its work and she's using both eyes again, the dr. says we will need to do surgery to realign her muscles to bring the null point back to the center so she can see better. Not sure yet when that will occur, but it sounds like it will be relatively soon after her next appointment. So, all in all, it's good news - good explanations for the changes in vision that we've been seeing, and all things that can be corrected and hopefully bring her back to the better (albeit not perfect) vision she had until about a month ago. We're very thankful that it was not more serious than this and that all of it can be corrected.
Anyway, I did want to give you an update on Elli's eyes. We had Elli's latest ophthalmologist appointment today. No signs of glaucoma or cataracts yet, so that was very positive. We had noticed some changes in her vision, which Ms. April and Ms. Katie had noticed as well. Thankfully, the doctors noticed them, too. There were apparently multiple issues causing this decline in her vision, and I'm glad we have doctors for these kinds of things, because I definitely wouldn't have guessed the #1 issue.
1) She is apparently not using her right eye much, which is causing the decline in vision that I've noticed. (I thought she was using the right eye and not the left...until they explained it to me. Now I realize that they're right. The technical term for what she's doing is "cross-fixating.") So, they want us to patch her left eye 2 hours a day for the next month, and then we go back for a checkup. The goal is to teach her brain to again recognize the images from both eyes.
2) She also has discovered the null point for her nystagmus (the point where her eyes don't bounce and wiggle so much, thus being the best point for her vision), and unfortunately, it's way down and to the right (which doesn't coexist well with using mostly her left eye for vision!). It used to be mildly down and slightly to the right, but it has apparently changed recently. When she looks to her left, the eyes bounce much more, which explains why she doesn't seem to notice things that are on her left side - it's too hard to see.
Once the patching does its work and she's using both eyes again, the dr. says we will need to do surgery to realign her muscles to bring the null point back to the center so she can see better. Not sure yet when that will occur, but it sounds like it will be relatively soon after her next appointment. So, all in all, it's good news - good explanations for the changes in vision that we've been seeing, and all things that can be corrected and hopefully bring her back to the better (albeit not perfect) vision she had until about a month ago. We're very thankful that it was not more serious than this and that all of it can be corrected.
3 comments:
well... I guess it's good that you have such great doctors that they noticed that stuff. I am sure the surgery will go well. And can't wait to see cutie Elli pics in her eye patch!
I really glad to hear that the current issues are correctible! I hope the surgery is an easy one for Elli.
And I think some pirate themed pictures are in the future!
We'll continue to pray for all of you! Glad the doctor was able to offer some insights and suggestions for taking care of the issues. We've been missing seeing updates on the blog...glad it's temporary and also glad you're wise enough to set good priorities!! :) Love ya!
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