Special Eyes

Hiya all,

This post is something Ive touched upon before, but finally today i thought id address it.
My little mans, 'special eyes' 'dopey eyes' 'sleepy eyes' 'lazy eye' or what ever else they want to be addressed as.

newborn

Today we got a letter to say he has another hospital appointment later this month, great, just what i need, a day of waiting in the hospital, Harry gets irate. Me and hubby get irate because we know whats going to happen. Harry gets called in (sometimes he has to have drops in and this is even more traumatic) and they try and test his eyes. As you can imagine on a nearly 2 yr old, this is not fun at all. He screams, we find it hard to restrain him, he gets really worked up because someone he doesn't no is shining lights into his eyes, they don't get any answers and tell us to go back in another 2months. And the cycle goes on.

few months old

Since Harry's been born his eyes have had the 'dopey' look (term that's been used to us by many a trained Ophthalmologist). But we thought this was a genetic thing as his daddy has the same 'sad dropey' eyes. When the midwife came around to sign us off at about 4 weeks old she said she would like him to get checked out. We have had many appointments since, they have held cards in front of his eyes to watch where his pupils go and used lights to see if they can tell if his eyes are working, but no real definite answers. When he was around 15 months, we had a appointment with a specialist who finally told us what they were looking for and why they were so worried, because Harry's eye lids are so low, they cover his pupil, so his eyes are sending messages to his brain to 'shut down' his eyes because the pupil is getting partially covered, this could result in his not being able to use one or both eyes, they continue to try and test to see if glasses or patches (imagine trying to keep them on a 2yr old) would help to strengthen the 'special' eye, but thus far they have not been able to get a definite result, and i don't no how they are going to get one this time either, because he just wont want to cooperate with them, hes 2 after all, he cant exactly say if he can see or not and as we know our little people are awkward at the best of time, let alone in a strange situation.
The specialist said that when he hits his teen years that he will be offered a operation to tighten up his eye lids so he doesn't look so 'dopey' as they put it. When this was mentioned i bust into tears the idea of my baby having to have an operation of any sort just puts fear into me.

around 7 months old

Harry's not really found much problem with his eyes, he was late walking and we think this may be because he couldn't work out how far away things were and his vision could of been blurred. Some days his eyes look more 'dopey' than normal but other than that hes a happy chappy.

The problem i have is that ever day we go out, we will always have someone come up and say 'he looks tired' or 'has he just woken up' or 'aww hes a dopey little chap isn't he' because his eyes make him seem that way. It used to really upset me because he is not dopey at all, and 9 times out of 10 he not tired either, but everyone seems to think its fine to comment, but i understand that they don't no his problems.

The problem with eye issues, is that we need him to be able to tell us whats going on for the problem to be sorted, it hard. Until then it will just be us going round in circles. Many more hospital appointments and flash cards and lights.

age 1

Keep your fingers crossed for us that we get more answers this time.
Id love to no if anyone else out there has been through or going through the same with your child's eyes.

Love Lucy x