Grace's Eye Appointment #5

In my brilliance I scheduled Grace's annual eye exam for 1:15pm this afternoon. What's wrong with that you ask? It's smack dab in the middle of Ethan's nap. Anyone with a young toddler who is down to one nap a day will know just how important that nap is and how completely awful it can be when that nap is cut short. Ethan got about a 45 minute nap in the car during our drive down to Albany and was not happy to be woken up when we got there. In fact he kept trying to ignore me and go back to sleep while I extracted him from his cozy car seat.

Hell hath no fury like a 19 month old little boy who seems to be coming down with a cold and is awoken after 45 minutes of blissful slumber.

Grace was an angel in the waiting room. She quietly read some books and magazines and visited the bathroom once. Ethan on the other hand was a holy terror. He cried when I tried to give him crackers. He cried when I put them away. He cried when I tried to interest him in a book. He gagged on a cracker and cried while I cleaned up the mess. He eventually allowed me to hold him on my lap but let me know he was not happy about it.

Thankfully he perked up when Grace was called in for her eye exam. She was a little apprehensive about sitting in the big chair at first but finally got brave enough to sit in it. I was shocked that she had told me in the waiting room that they have a tiger that moves because I didn't think she'd remember her visit from last year. Sure enough she was happy to see the tiger that moves and roars on the opposite end of the room. The whole purpose of the tiger is to direct her eyesight there so the doctor can take a look at her eyes.

This year they were able to do a "real" eye exam and were able to tell me that her vision is at least 20/30 which is normal. They showed her the familiar letters projected across the room and gave her a chart with the four letters they used on it and asked her to point to the letter that they pointed to on the opposite wall. She did really well with that.

The only part of the exam that Grace didn't do well on is getting eye drops but I can't blame her for that. I'm not a fan either. I had to hold her down for the second eye because once she felt the first one she wasn't about to sit anywhere near still as the doctor moved towards her other eye!

Since we had to wait 30 minutes for her eyes to dilate we drove down the street to McDonalds for a quick ice cream cone. She enjoyed her ice cream and stuck her two prize stickers on each of her knees before we headed back for Round Two of the eye exam.

Thankfully the wait was mercifully short before we saw Dr. Wheeler and Ethan's mood had improved considerably. He spun circles to the delight of an elderly woman next to us and charmed the pants off another Mom. What a stinker.

Dr. Wheeler told me that Grace's eyesight and astigmatism is unchanged from our last visit which is good news. We talked about the eye surgery that is coming up soon for her and he is going to refer us to the pediatric orogolomistician (eye surgeon) up in Portland. He suggested that we set our annual appointment with him next spring so we can do the surgery next summer before she starts kindergarten. It sounds like the surgery won't be too involved and will only last approximately 30 minutes. Of course that's just a guess since Dr. Wheeler doesn't do eye surgery and that assumes that they will only work on her one eye.

I'm glad that the exam went well (I'm just going to block out the waiting room memory) and that we'll hopefully have the surgery done next summer. It's something we've known is coming for 3 years now and I'll feel better when it's done with. Certainly not looking forward to the actual procedure!