School is back on - and I thought I'd take the opportunity to re-establish a routine - that is, patching at a specific time every day. This seems to have worked well, since we are establishing a new routine for everything else right now, too. Soccer season is underway, homework's gotta get done, etc. Funny thing is, we accidentally stumbled upon a saving grace...The Karaoke Machine!
Joey was given this nifty little machine for Christmas. After a couple of months, I put it in the garage and figured we could pull it out whenever we wanted to play with it. This week, as Joey walked past it on his way in the house, he asked if we could bring it in. I said, "Hey yeah, we could do THAT for our patch activity!" (We do various things - games/crafts - while he's patched to make the time go by faster and because I gotta keep my eye on him the whole time to make sure he doesn't "cheat"!)
So...we karaoke'd! And let me tell you...You have no idea how fast patch-time flies when you are Karaoking!! We were singing away..."Girls just wanna have fu-un..."...and before we knew it, patch time was done!
Not sure how long the novelty will last. But for now - we are singing fools!
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
March Visit to Dr. T
Joey had his routine eye check-up with Dr. T yesterday. Everything looks good! At his last appointment, his left eye was at 150/20. Yesterday, it was 125/20! That's a slight improvement! Everything inside his eye looks stable, and his cataract has not worsened. All good news!
During the exam, I had the pleasure of hearing my 7 year old son have a conversation with his doctor about Vincent Van Gogh! There was a small calendar on the desk with a picture, so Joey pointed to it and said "That's a famous artist."
Dr. T said, "Yes, it is! Do you recognize him?"
Joey said, "He cut off his ear!".
Dr. T said, "That's right! It's Vincent Van Gogh! Have you learned about him?"
Joey said "Yeah, we learned about him in school.".
Dr. T said, "He was also a poet. Did you know that? But he only became famous after his death. That happens a lot. A lot of artists only get famous after their death. ."
I enjoyed this little exchange, and Dr. T seemed to enjoy it, too! They also discussed motorcycle riding (Joey's favorite rider is Travis Pastrana, Dr. T's favorite rider is Ricky Carmichael). Joey also wanted to let Dr. T know that he had gotten an A+ in Language at school. (Later, he proudly told Daddy that Dr. T said he "loves it when his patients get A's"!) He even asked Dr. T how long he had been an eye doctor (10 years)! He is one of the best (if not the best) pediatric retinologists - I am so glad God led us to him!
Later that evening, Joey had Karate class. I gave him the option of skipping it cuz his eyes were still dilated, and the lights at the dojo are bright. But he wanted to go. (They've ordered his sparring gear and he wanted to see if it had come in. They ordered a week ago, and told us it would take 6-10 business days to arrive. It's been 7 days, and Joey - not knowing the concept of "business days" - thought it would be there!) During his class, I overheard him telling his Sensei that his eyes were dilated. Sensei kinda laughed and said, "Do you know what dilated means? It's when the black thing in your eye gets bigger or smaller to let light in or not". And I thought...Not only does he know what dilated means, but he knows that the black thing is called a pupil! From where I was sitting, I couldn't hear the whole thing, so I couldn't tell if Joey was telling him that the lights were too bright, or if he was just chatting about his day . But he didn't seem to be having a hard time, so I didn't interfere.
So Joey has had a great week! He got his midterm report and his grades have all improved; he's happily waiting to start sparring at Karate; and his eye exam went very well! And today his school is having its "Grandparents Day" (his class will be singing "Take Me Home, Country Road")!
Next eye exam is scheduled for July.
Until then...
During the exam, I had the pleasure of hearing my 7 year old son have a conversation with his doctor about Vincent Van Gogh! There was a small calendar on the desk with a picture, so Joey pointed to it and said "That's a famous artist."
Dr. T said, "Yes, it is! Do you recognize him?"
Joey said, "He cut off his ear!".
Dr. T said, "That's right! It's Vincent Van Gogh! Have you learned about him?"
Joey said "Yeah, we learned about him in school.".
Dr. T said, "He was also a poet. Did you know that? But he only became famous after his death. That happens a lot. A lot of artists only get famous after their death. ."
I enjoyed this little exchange, and Dr. T seemed to enjoy it, too! They also discussed motorcycle riding (Joey's favorite rider is Travis Pastrana, Dr. T's favorite rider is Ricky Carmichael). Joey also wanted to let Dr. T know that he had gotten an A+ in Language at school. (Later, he proudly told Daddy that Dr. T said he "loves it when his patients get A's"!) He even asked Dr. T how long he had been an eye doctor (10 years)! He is one of the best (if not the best) pediatric retinologists - I am so glad God led us to him!
Later that evening, Joey had Karate class. I gave him the option of skipping it cuz his eyes were still dilated, and the lights at the dojo are bright. But he wanted to go. (They've ordered his sparring gear and he wanted to see if it had come in. They ordered a week ago, and told us it would take 6-10 business days to arrive. It's been 7 days, and Joey - not knowing the concept of "business days" - thought it would be there!) During his class, I overheard him telling his Sensei that his eyes were dilated. Sensei kinda laughed and said, "Do you know what dilated means? It's when the black thing in your eye gets bigger or smaller to let light in or not". And I thought...Not only does he know what dilated means, but he knows that the black thing is called a pupil! From where I was sitting, I couldn't hear the whole thing, so I couldn't tell if Joey was telling him that the lights were too bright, or if he was just chatting about his day . But he didn't seem to be having a hard time, so I didn't interfere.
So Joey has had a great week! He got his midterm report and his grades have all improved; he's happily waiting to start sparring at Karate; and his eye exam went very well! And today his school is having its "Grandparents Day" (his class will be singing "Take Me Home, Country Road")!
Next eye exam is scheduled for July.
Until then...
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Finding Nemo Makes Me Cry
I kinda put this out of my mind for a while, until I was recently reading another Mom's blog about how she had read Finding Nemo to her son every night, complete with different voices!
I'm sure you've seen it by now, so I wont bother to warn you that this is a spoiler. Nemo's Dad is overprotective of him, which really annoys Nemo. The whole adventure of the story is that Nemo gets lost, and his Dad spends the duration of the movie trying to find him. When they are finally reunited, Nemo gets hurt, and is laying there, lifeless. Dad picks up Nemo's little body, looks at him, and he gets a flash of a memory - looking at Nemo's egg before he was born. I know that I could never explain how my heart feels when I see that scene. Here's why. When Joey was undergoing the first exam under anesthesia to find out what the "mass" in his eye was, I sat in the waiting room. And I remember having memory flashes; and one I distinctly remember, was looking at the pregnancy test that said "positive", that I was expecting Joey. Yeah, it's just a fish cartoon, but that movie will always have such an emotional tie in my heart.
I'm sure you've seen it by now, so I wont bother to warn you that this is a spoiler. Nemo's Dad is overprotective of him, which really annoys Nemo. The whole adventure of the story is that Nemo gets lost, and his Dad spends the duration of the movie trying to find him. When they are finally reunited, Nemo gets hurt, and is laying there, lifeless. Dad picks up Nemo's little body, looks at him, and he gets a flash of a memory - looking at Nemo's egg before he was born. I know that I could never explain how my heart feels when I see that scene. Here's why. When Joey was undergoing the first exam under anesthesia to find out what the "mass" in his eye was, I sat in the waiting room. And I remember having memory flashes; and one I distinctly remember, was looking at the pregnancy test that said "positive", that I was expecting Joey. Yeah, it's just a fish cartoon, but that movie will always have such an emotional tie in my heart.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Anna Nicole's Baby Wearing a Patch on Her Eye
While she does NOT have Coats' Disease, Dannielyn is wearing a patch as treatment for strabismus. Strabismus, or crossed eyes, is common among children, and about 4% of children in the US have the condition. I had Joey watch it just so he could see that he's not the only kid who has to patch! I wish Larry Birkhead the best and hope the patching works so that Dannielyn does not need to have surgery to have this corrected.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
2008 Update
Long time since last post. Joey saw Dr. T for his routine check-up in December.
a. Retina looks dry (that's good)
b. Vision is the same (As long as its not getting worse, I'll take it!)
c. his Cataract is still the same (see "b" note above!)
Dr. T wants to see us in 3 months, cuz he wants to keep an eye on the cataract. Call me a nut case, but I am praying that the cataract decreases and goes away. We gotta resolve to patch more regularly, too. Its hard, cuz he gets out of school at 3pm, then two days a week he has Karate in the evenings, and he has homework (which, depending on mood, can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 hours - he is a strong-willed little boy!!). So our patching has become only one hour, on 2-3 days a week (on a good week). So, gotta figure out how to manage this a little better, to accomplish more patching time.
He has questions from time to time, like if it would help his vision to wear glasses. I had to explain to him why this is "different" than needing glasses. He seemed to understand. He also wonders what its like to see "with two eyes". Now that he's a little older (7-1/2 yrs!), things are a little easier to explain to him. He tells people he's had "two laser surgeries" and that he "really hated the sleepy medicine!". Talking about it brings some freedom and relief - cuz when he was younger and going through all this, we didn't give him all the details for fear of scaring him too much.
At the last appointment with Dr. T, I told Joey, "You've been coming to see Dr. T for over half your life, Joey!" He was pretty amazed, and Dr. T said "Wow! So I really deserved those pictures you brought me!" (Joey had given him his karate pictures at that visit).
Until next time...
a. Retina looks dry (that's good)
b. Vision is the same (As long as its not getting worse, I'll take it!)
c. his Cataract is still the same (see "b" note above!)
Dr. T wants to see us in 3 months, cuz he wants to keep an eye on the cataract. Call me a nut case, but I am praying that the cataract decreases and goes away. We gotta resolve to patch more regularly, too. Its hard, cuz he gets out of school at 3pm, then two days a week he has Karate in the evenings, and he has homework (which, depending on mood, can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 hours - he is a strong-willed little boy!!). So our patching has become only one hour, on 2-3 days a week (on a good week). So, gotta figure out how to manage this a little better, to accomplish more patching time.
He has questions from time to time, like if it would help his vision to wear glasses. I had to explain to him why this is "different" than needing glasses. He seemed to understand. He also wonders what its like to see "with two eyes". Now that he's a little older (7-1/2 yrs!), things are a little easier to explain to him. He tells people he's had "two laser surgeries" and that he "really hated the sleepy medicine!". Talking about it brings some freedom and relief - cuz when he was younger and going through all this, we didn't give him all the details for fear of scaring him too much.
At the last appointment with Dr. T, I told Joey, "You've been coming to see Dr. T for over half your life, Joey!" He was pretty amazed, and Dr. T said "Wow! So I really deserved those pictures you brought me!" (Joey had given him his karate pictures at that visit).
Until next time...
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