Simon, Children's Mercy, Part 1

I mentioned in my Quick 5 yesterday that we had discussed Simon's possibly being cross-eyed and making a quick trip to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City to have his eyes checked.  Here is the fuller story, should you be interested in knowing it.

I'll leave the lead-up to the appointment to yesterday's post.  However, the doctor did indeed notice Simon's eyes as soon as she sat down.  The discussion immediately turned to possibly causes (anything from a lax muscle and bad vision to that he was possibly developing a cataract) as she began pulling out the various routine handouts and papers.  She would do a cursory eye exam, but what he really needed was to see an eye doctor.  Pediatricians are only equipped to do a very basic exam, but an eye doctor would be able to examine the back of the eye and the retina where the problems causing his eye to cross would be.  The appointment then proceeded as normal, going over his stats and his development, as well as discussing the shots he would be receiving.  She did the normal exam, poking his tummy, checking things over, looking in his ears, etc.  And then she looked at his eyes.  Right away, she saw that his left eye didn't have the reflexes it should.  Then she did a red reflex check.  This is basically where she looks in his eye and checks for any abnormalities on the back of the eye.  At the time, she told me she couldn't get a good one; later, she told me she hadn't been able to get one at all in his left eye.  During our check-up she told me this would put him at "high priority" and needed to be checked out within the next two weeks.  It could be anything from the fact that she couldn't get a good look in his eye or that he might possibly have a tumor growing on the retina. She would have a nurse work on the referral that afternoon and if we didn't hear something in a week, to call back.

On the way home, I pulled through Starbucks for an iced chai and a juice box for Eliza (Simon was enjoying some milk after his shots).  Need I tell you I was emotional?  What did this mean?  Glasses at the least; emergency surgery at the worst, I was thinking.  Before I had even reached my neighborhood, the nurse called.  They referred us to Children's Mercy, and Children's wanted us to come that afternoon if possible.  The nurse acknowledged it was very short notice and that perhaps it wasn't necessary to go that day, but they don't like to wait when it comes to the eyes.  I called Nick, and he took off the rest of the day to come along.  I called my mom, and she came to get Eliza so she wouldn't have to sit in the waiting room all afternoon, too.   The rest of the afternoon I focused my energy on two things: trying not to overreact and worry, and patience.

The range of possibilities was huge; Simon could land anywhere in that spectrum.  Nick reminded me that we had dedicated Simon to the Lord, and the Lord would take care of things.  Whatever happened, Simon was the Lord's and the Lord was in control.  Thank God, He is!  He would equip us to take care of the situation, come what may, even if we were slow-learners.  The bottom-line was that we didn't need to freak out until there was a reason to do so.

As for patience, mine was sorely tested.  We arrived early for the appointment, and proceeded to wait, and wait, and wait.  We waited nearly an hour and a half just for the initial examination.  Simon handled things fairly well, sitting at a children's table and paging through books with Nick or playing with the paper and crayons scattered across the tabletop.  I sat in a chair unfortunately positioned beneath the only TV in the room, tuned into a SpongeBob Squarepants marathon.  Do you know how much I loathe SpongeBob?  The show's not allowed on our TV, nor is any paraphernalia dealing with the characters in our house.  For nearly an hour and a half, I sat beneath it while it's obnoxious voice-overs and grating soundtrack played above my head.  I would have begged to change to the Disney Channel or even Animal Planet or Discovery Kids had not the rest of the waiting room children been calmly engrossed in it.  Then, sad to say, after our initial exam and Simon was given the drops to dilate his eyes, we were returned to the same waiting room with the same marathon.  By then, I was exhausted.  It was nearly 5:00.  We were told we'd have to wait until 10-15 more minutes for the drops to work, but more than a half hour passed before anyone came to get us.  By then, we'd watched all the day receptionists go home.  We were the last patients in the waiting room.  As hard as I was trying to not get annoyed, to be understanding and calm, I was beginning to fail.

(In defense of the situation, the doctor we'd been scheduled to see was the on-call doctor that day and she had a few emergencies walk in her door which set us back in priority.  It was nice on one hand to know we weren't really an emergency, though one nurse was placating enough to say that she considered us one as well.  On the other hand, I wanted to yell back into the office, "Come on!  We drove an hour for this!")

As far as the appointment itself went, when we managed to make it into an exam room, Simon was a champ for the initial.  In fact, he was a champ throughout.  Mostly, he just wanted to roam around and look at things.  He sat so still and nice through the initial exam, even letting the nurse and the doctor cover each of his eyes with their hands and in the doctor's case a few prisms as they looked into his eyes.  The exam after the dilation was a different story.  By this time, he was getting tired.  And I'm sure the light hurt.  They had to bring in an addition nurse to hold him down while I held his arms above his head so he couldn't use them or look away.  I tried as hard as I could to snuggle him throughout the process, but it's hard to snuggle when you're holding someone's hands above their head.  He was "hoppin' mad" by the time it was done, but thankfully not too much at me.  He clung to my shoulder until we left the doctor.

The final diagnosis was Accomodative Esotropia.  What that really means is that he's cross-eyed because he can't see very well.  He is far-sighted, meaning he can't focus on things up close.  He has to work so hard to focus on anything closer to hand (and that doesn't necessarily even mean in his hand, his prescription is very strong) that his eyes cross in the effort.  This very likely gives him double vision, and to avoid it his brain has quit using his left eye.  Since that eye doesn't get a work out, the muscles are growing lax and his eye is drifting.  At least, this what I understand from the information that they gave us.  I'm sure we'll learn more about it as we go through this process and his check-ups and my understanding will be refined.  However, his retina is very healthy, the nerve looks good, there's no sign of any of the more serious things it could possibly have been.  Our little man just needs glasses.

Shortly after we left the hospital, our pediatrician at the end of her day called to check on him.  She'd been very worried after doing the red reflex and not being able to see anything.  Essentially, she'd been waiting to chat with us before going home to know how he was.  She reminded me that their eyes grow so fast at this age that it will affect how his eyes develop, but that this is the easy fix.  It was good to know she cares that much about him to check up on him.  She was very relieved to know it's just the Accomodative Esotropia; she reminded me that it was very possible he wouldn't even need glasses after some time.

Nick and I are currently searching out our options to buy him glasses.  We'd like to get them on him as soon as possible, so he has time to adapt and they have time to help before his two-month check up in September.  It doesn't look like insurance will help with the expense, so we are trying to find an affordable option that will really meet his needs.  We'd love to get him these Miraflex glasses, which are rubber and virtually indestructible (we saw a few kids at Children's Mercy with them), but they are a bit out of our price range.  So we'll just do our best to see what we can get him.  Stay tuned, and I'll hopefully have a picture of him in them soon.