So, it’s Monday and I am hoping it is going to be a better week than last week. This week we get Ryan’s new glasses to correct the astigmatism we still can’t quite believe he has. Talk about coming out of left field – you could have knocked me over with a feather when the opthamalogist told us he would need glasses from the moment he wakes up until he goes to sleep. We never had a clue – no squinting, no sitting close to the TV – nothing. Danny, Matty and I do not need glasses so this is the last thing we expected. Probably one of the hardest things for Danny and I is that we had no frame of reference at all – I was handed a prescription that might as well have been some other language. I had to stop the nurse and tell her that I needed an explanation – what do I do with this thing with all the strange numbers on it! I took Ryan on Friday to pick out frames and suprisingly enough, at 4 1/2 years of age, he had definate opinions on what he liked and what he did not like. So $850.00 later, we ordered two pair which should be ready this Friday.

Danny and I have been researching astigmatism on the internet ever since the opthamologist dropped that bomb on us. Every thing I read makes me very glad we caught it now and the doctor did not diagnose amblyopia which can lead to loss of vision in one eye. He did say that Ryan’s eyes are amblyio-genic – meaning that if left uncorrected, he could develop amblyopia which would require patching the good eye in hopes of restoring vision in the “lazy
eye. There is no guarantee that it will work either. The other thing we kept wondering about (and feeling mighty guilty about) was how has Ryan seen the world these past four years. Did he know what we look like? How could we have missed this? Again, thank God for the internet. We actually were able to see an example of astigmatic sight – some things would be blurry at all distances, but not everything. We also were able to research our options – like contacts (Doctor said age 13 but I read enough that said we have a good shot to switching to contacts by age 8) and Lasik surgery no earlier than 15 if Ryan wants it. But, one step at a time – we need to get him used to wearing glasses which, in the beginning, can make him dizzy, disoriented and give him headaches. Changing to perfect vision is exhausting in the beginning.

3/28/07 – Ryan got his glasses and is doing great!