Well, our son had a major milestone in his life today. He got glasses. I have so many emotions about it and I don't want to write everything down in here, but it was a very emotional day for me (and probably Missy too). It's kind'of a long story, but I'll try to recount it here.
It all started when Jack failed an eye test in kindergarten. He came home with a sheet of paper that said he couldn't see as well in his left eye and that we needed to have it checked out. So we called our eye doctor (Dr. Hayden) and got him an appointment with Dr. Stearns (Dr. Hayden doesn't see kids). Well, Jack was his last patient that day and he seemed like he was in a hurry to go and seemed to rush things. Jack couldn't see the letters very well, but they have small exam rooms and have a mirror on the front wall that you look through to see the letters on the back wall and I think that mirror blurs things a bit and makes it harder to see. The only kind of eye test they had were letters and Jack doesn't know his letter that well, so I wasn't sure if he had trouble seeing them or remembering what they were. He also only dilated his eyes for about 10-15 min (he was in a hurry). He said that Jack has a fair amount of astigmatism and needed to get some glasses right away. I was shocked! I had no idea what astigmatism meant so I asked him about it and asked him why he needed glasses since he had never complained of not being able to see things. He kind'of snapped back and said that Jack could suffer permanent damage to the vision center in his brain because his brain was still developing and cannot see a clear image because of the astigmatism. So needless to say, I was pretty upset and started doing all kids of research on astigmatism.
I found out that Dr. Stearns was right about astigmatism in children. Kids' vision center is still developing until they are about 9 years old and if astigmatism is left untreated, it can result in amblyopia or "lazy eye". But I also did a lot of reading that said myopia has been diagnosed more and more in the past 50 years and there are some doctors that think it is caused by lots of "close work" or focusing the eyes on close objects. Myopia is much more prevalent in Asian cultures and about 80% of children have myopia in Singapore, so there has been some research that has suggested that things like reading, using a computer, watching TV, etc. can cause myopia because the ciliary muscles contract when focusing on close objects which causes the eye to strain and not see distant objects very well. They say that children need to do more things outside, in the sun, which lets the eye relax by focusing on distant objects and forces the pupils to constrict in the bright light. Some doctors say that kids need to use +3 reading glasses when doing close work because it lets the eyes relax. I also read that a Pediatric Ophthalmologist really needs to diagnose astigmatism in children because they are better at testing them, etc. so we made an appointment with Dr. Judith Englert for a second opinion.
Jack's appointment with Dr. Englert was MUCH better. They did not have a mirror. They had pictures of things like a car, a birthday cake, and a crab. The nurse was very patient and made Jack comfortable and encouraged him to do his best on the test. They also let his eyes dilate for about an hour before doing the exam. He clearly had trouble seeing the pictures when they got pretty small. Dr. Englert also diagnosed him with astigmatism, so we were upset and relieved at the same time. I had tons of questions written down that I was going to ask her about myopia and the need for glasses, but I knew as soon as she said he had astigmatism, all my questions were unnecessary.
Well, we got him and started planning on when we were going to take him to get fitted for some glasses, and I happened to compare the prescriptions from Dr. Stearns and Dr. Englert and they were totally different!!! What was going on? They weren't even close. I wondered how this could be and if he needed to see ANOTHER doctor. We were very upset and confused, but we finally decided to send Dr. Hayden an email and ask him what to do, so I took pictures of each prescription and sent them to Dr. Hayden. He wrote back a couple days later and said that the prescriptions were actually very, very close! Dr. Stearns writes his in the "minus" format and Dr. Englert writes hers in the "plus" format. The optometrist translates the "plus" format to the "minus" format to make the glasses, so Dr. Stearns does that translation for them to reduced errors. Man, were we relieved and thankful to learn that!!!
Well, a couple days later, we went to Eye Mart and picked out some very cute frames for Jack. He was very, very excited. I'm not sure why, but I'm very glad he was. I think maybe it's because I wear my glasses from time-to-time and he thinks it's cool, but I sure hope he stays that way. It literally broke my heart the first time he tried on those frames. They totally changed the way he looks. I remember so clearly all the struggles I went through with glasses and how much I hated them and I don't want Jack to go through those things too. They totally changed my personality. They totally changed the way people interacted with me and how they looked at him. They made me more timid in sports because I was always afraid I was going to break my glasses. I could go on and on because there are so many emotions I have about Jack getting glasses today, but I know he's going to read this someday and I don't want to negatively influence him based of my own experience with glasses. I didn't get mine until I was 9 so my personality was much more developed that his is at 6. I hope with all my heart that his experience is better than mine.
Today was the day we picked them up and he put them on for the first time. I was hoping and praying that he would be able to see everything so much better as soon as he put them on, but even that didn't happen. We tried to test him informally by asking him to read various signs around the office at Eye Mart and it was pretty clear that he couldn't see any better (or worse) with the glasses on. The lady that was helping me even called another lady over to get her opinion. She took them to the lab and tested them to make sure they were the right prescription and she came back and said they were perfect. We tried several more things and he just couldn't see that much better with the glasses on. She told me that the astigmatism adjustment might take some getting used to and to let him wear them for a couple of days and keep testing him to see if he sees better and if not, go back to Dr. Englert. He did really well with them today and I threw him some baseballs and he seemed to not have any problem hitting them. He might have even done a little better with the glasses on (definitely not worse). He also did fine with catching, so I really don't think they are making things worse for him. I guess we'll just have to see how he does in a few more days.
