Patched

Jordan went back to the ophthalmologist for a follow-up visit. He was once again a fantastic participant: he was so very articulate and reliable that they decided to use a device they had never used on a five-year-old before (it's normally for 13 and over). He did great. The right eye, however, is still not up to speed, and there remains a concern that the brain will tune it out. So he is to wear a patch on the good eye. The good news is, it's only four hours a day, and they need not be consecutive hours, so we can patch him before and after school instead of all day.


They gave us patches with entertaining designs on them, which Jordan liked, and he and I did some online shopping yesterday for more of them. He is pretty accepting about the whole thing. The ophthalmologist had a terrific attitude with him. When he went with Dale to pick up Aaron, though, everyone at school was very shocked and appalled ("Jordan, oh my god, what happened to your eye?!?"). That was rough. The next day, he cried and said it was bothering him and tried to get us to take it off. I felt bad, but hopefully we are assuring him the use of two eyes for the rest of his life, so we will persist. With luck he may only have to wear it for a few months. There are only a couple of years left in which the visual system is still pretty flexible, so, now is the time.

I tried one on myself, just to check it out, and I admit it felt pretty strange, like where did the other half of the world go? Plus it was just odd having a bandage on my eye. But I did get used to it after a few minutes.