Rain Drops and Eye Doctor Adventures

Sweet G is beginning to have a fear of doctors. I can't say that I blame him. He has had things done to him that would be considered torture if done to a prisoner of war. Exams and procedures that are very necessary have had to be done. As an adult there are times I know I should go have certain tests done and I don't because they are embarrassing, uncomfortable or painful. I choose to take my chances that everything is okay. My Sweet G has not had the option of choosing which tests and treatments he has received. He is at our mercy. I assure you that everything that has been done to my child is only because it is absolutely imperative for his well being. He doesn't always understand that fact though.

One of the many things that G's CP affects has been his eye alignment. I didn't know that eye alignment can affect the vision of a person. It actually can cause them to go blind in the weaker eye. The brain simply shuts that eye off to avoid the confusion that the incorrect eye alignment causes it.

G started seeing an eye doctor immediately after his release from the hospital. At first it was to check the health of his eyes due to his prematurity. Premature infants are at high risk of developing retinopathy of prematurity, resulting in blindness. Those eye visits were torture for him and me. They actually pry the baby's eyes open and place a metal object designed to keep the eye wide open in so they can check the retinas and the blood vessels of the eyes. I thank God that my brother was able to go with me to those visits and helped me through them.

Thank God Sweet G didn't develop ROP and didn't return to the eye doctor until he was around 18-24 months. It was pretty obvious that G's eye alignment was off and he had a lazy eye. We once again returned to the eye doctor. We started with our family eye doctor who has an eye alignment person come to his office once a month and see children with this problem. We did the whole eye patch thing for months. That was an ordeal. An ordeal that didn't work. Surgery was required to straighten his eyes. The first time he was two years old. They did surgery on one eye and it worked for a while. Two years ago he had surgery again. This time both eyes required surgery because the way that his eyes were turning put his eyesight in jeopardy.

A couple of years ago when they put drops in G's eyes to dilate them he began calling them rain drops. "Are they going to do the rain drops? I don't want rain drops." He not only said this at the eye doctor but at every doctor we have visited since. Thursday G had an eye appointment. We said there would be no rain drops. The nurse said there would be no rain drops. The doctor, however, decided that he needed the rain drops.

The nurse comes in and asks J to give Sweet G a big hug (code words for hold him down). They wrestle the poor child and pry his little eyes open as he yells, "You lied, you lied." After giving Daddy a few minutes to make up with G I took him to try and calm him down and keep him from calling the nurse a liar again. When I picked him up I said, "You know what we need to do?" G, without missing a beat said, "Yeah, find a new doctor." That was funny comment number one. The second hilarious thing he said was to the doctor as he was explaining his findings and his recommendations. I must tell you that G has drooled over the glasses since he started going there at 2 years old. He wants glasses and he wants them bad. The doctor was telling us that G did have a slight prescription for glasses but that "if he were my son I wouldn't get him glasses." Again without hesitation G says, "But I am not your son." He didn't mean it in a rude way. He is very literal and the comment of the doctor merely confused him. It was however very funny. But as we all know three is the charm. So, before we left he made one last hilarious comment. This time the receptionist got to witness his humor. As we were putting the sunglasses on his little face he said, "Hey, I look just like Stevie Wonder." At the same time he said it he got excited and his tone kicked in which caused him to sway his head and upper body back and forth repeatedly. It really was a great imitation of Stevie Wonder. Oh, what money I could make if only I caught these moments on video.