Blogging about life in Minnesota, raising our six kids with Down syndrome while battling Breast Cancer.

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor in the morning the devil says, "Oh shit! She's up!"

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Arrrrgh!

About 2 months ago I took Asher in for a check up with his eye specialist. We're still really concerned about his left eye. After almost a year in glasses it still isn't functioning very well. The doctor said it was time to start patching.

The first time I put a patch on him it was more than I could stand. His little eye turned right to his nose and he couldn't bring it out to center to see at all. (the good eye is patched, forcing the weaker eye muscles to kick in) When his lip stuck out I knew he was truly overwhelmed. I dreaded patching his eye every day. We were supposed to be working up to eight full ours of patching every day. I wasn't very good about following through at all. Then his glasses got broken at school so he was nearly a month with out them.

My other problem is I don't want him only patched at school so that "school" becomes the preferred place because "home" is where the patch is on. I decided to wait until Christmas break so we could work up to the full eight hours.

Right now I have alarms set on my phone to go off at several times through out the day. The patch goes on for 90 minutes, comes off for 2 hours, then back on for 90 minutes. By Weds next week these times will blend together so he's wearing the patch for the prescribed length of time.

My poor Ashie! About every 5 minutes he comes to me signing "Please" then takes my hand and puts it to his eye; his way of asking me to take it off. Then every three minutes he signs "glasses" because he can't see well and he knows his glasses allow him to see. He has his glasses on during the patching times but I'm sure in his head trying to figure out why they're not working.

Still, he maintains his very sunny disposition. He's such a happy boy!



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love that sweet smile!

Cindy said...

Oh, poor guy!! He sure is happy though!