current events...sarah's eye update...8.26

today we had a routine check up with dr. byrd, sarah's pediatric ophthalmologist...

here's the latest....sarah's eye exam showed her "bad" eye, her right eye is now 20/40 (same as last appt). dr. byrd looked back, and in january of 2008 (a mere 8 months ago) sarah's vision in her right eye was 20/80!!! a wonderful improvement! dr. byrd always says, "slow and steady wins the race" referring to correcting a child's vision. so, we were super excited to hear that she had made that much progress! and another thing that i never knew until today, until a child is 6 years old, true "perfect vision" is 20/30 NOT 20/20! so, we are really close to sarah having perfect vision! oh, i guess i should clarify that all of these results are sarah's CORRECTED VISION (with glasses)! so, i don't know how poor her vision actually is without the glasses.

so, the game plan...keep up the patch work! we are currently patching 3-4 hours a day. and i am really OCD about it (imagine that). so, we are going to continue on that plan since we ARE getting results. again, people go their whole lives with vision like what sarah started with, but since her vision deficits were caught at such a young age, we are just trying to literally fix her vision as much as possible before vision becomes un-fixable in childhood. also, sarah's eyes were dialated today and that exam continues to be normal. we have also noticed a significant decrease in sarah's eye turning in to compensate for her weak vision (what looks like a mild lazy eye...but is actually just a part of sarah's extreme farsightedness). dr. byrd confirmed that sarah did better on that testing as well!

dr. byrd was very encouraging today. tim and i were telling her how hard it is to see the progress when we are in the trenches day in and day out. i was REALLY happy that she gave us the concrete evidence that all of this "stuff" is working. i was actually almost in tears when i thought sarah hadn't made any progress between last appointment and this one. its getting old to have to patch every day. and, sarah's friends are starting to ask more questions. sweet sarah just tells people that her eye is "getting stronger" when they ask her. its so precious...and heart breaking at the same time that my daughter is having to go through this. of course, we just want to shield sarah from any pain or suffering. but, in the grand scheme of things, this is SO MINOR and sarah is coping with it amazingly. ok, enough pity party-talk...that's just what's on my mind tonight...

oh, a little funny from today at the doctor's office...sarah and another little patient were talking in the waiting room, and sarah said, "i'm getting my eyes cleaned today"! guess that recent dentist visit is still fresh on her mind!!!

see previous updates...here and here. i don't blog every time we go to the doctor. we usually go 8 weeks or 3 months between appointments--whatever dr. byrd recommends, we do!!!