In roughly one week's time, Bryce may look a little different to you, but you're going to look a lot different to him. On Friday, we took him to the opthamologist for yet another follow-up. His eyes are structurally sound, and he did really well with all the tests. However, at -12.0 diopters, Bryce's myopia (nearsightedness) is very severe. If that's Greek to you (as it was for me until I read this Wikipedia article), the doctor explained that he can only see "normally" to a distance of roughly a foot, and everything beyond a few feet is extremely blurry. The optometrist who helped us order his glasses was actually excited because she feels that it will have a huge impact on how Bryce perceives the world. Hopefully he'll still be the happy, laid back baby we all know and love.
The good news is that as far as eye problems go, this is one of the better ones to have. It's correctable with glasses, and Bryce can wear contacts if he prefers when he's a bit older. Also, the doctor told us that Lasik surgery would be effective once his eyes have finished maturing (around age 21).
The other big news is that Bryce is no longer a Swaddler! For the past eleven months, Bryce has been wearing Pampers Swaddlers, starting with the mind-bogglingly tiny micro-preemie diapers that are only available in Level III NICUs, then working his way up through Preemie, Newborn, Size 1 and Size 2. As of today, he is officially a Size 3 "Cruiser", and believe me, he is working hard to live up to that name. I'm no occupational therapist, but I'd be surprised if he's not crawling before his actual 1-yr birthday. It's been a long road, but our micro-preemie is growing up. :) Print this post
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An excerpt from an e-mail I received from one of Bryce's realtives that helped me put "-12.0 diopters" in perspective:
ReplyDelete"The optometrist is right about Bryce’s eyes. It’s hard to explain to someone who’s never experienced it, but when you can only see a foot in front of you, it makes you feel like you are disoriented all the time. It also effects how well you can hear. When you can’t “see” that someone is talking to you, you just think of it has background noise. I remember my Mom having to put her glasses on in the dark, because it would help her see and hear better. I never understood that until I got to that point myself. I think my last pair of contacts were a -7.75. If you were 2 or 3 feet away from me, I couldn’t tell if you were a man or a woman. I would just see dark spots where your eyes are. I have to say that I think of Lasik surgery as a true miracle."