Kalea's Eyeballs

So for the last 3yrs and 5mths since becoming a parent I have been asked on a very regular basis, "Have you noticed that Kalea's eye is um... crossed?" to which in my mind I respond "Of course not, why would a mother notice something like that, dough head?" and then in real life I respond "Yup we have, nothing we can do until she's older and can tell us if she can see stuff", pretty generic but really that's all we had at the time. Oh and sorry if you've asked me that question and now feel like I think you're dumb. I know you aren't dumb, the question just gets old really fast and I know everyone is well-meaning and that's great, my inner response is just a bit more um, abrasive than my outer.
One of Kalea's referrals from our family doctor a few weeks ago was a referral to a "children's ophthamologist" so that we could take her somewhere that was fully equipped to handle uncooperative preschoolers children. So today we had our first date at the Alberta Children's Hospital, which is a really incredible facility, go check out their website. The hospital is 100% kid friendly, the windows are huge, there's a park and a track, an indoor play area for sick kids and their siblings, and a million other awesome kid friendly things. I didn't expect to feel so happy there, but it was great. The vision clinic is on the second level at the end of a huge hallway with various other clinics along the way. Genius is the fact that in every clinic's "waiting area" there are awesome little play areas, it was a bit of a struggle to get to the end of the hallway without stopping at every single one, but we made sure we hit them all up on our way out. When we got to our check-in desk, the counter was child-height, Kalea just walked on up and rested her elbow on the desk and said "good morning" to the receptionist. It was hilarious. They called her "Miss Kalea" the whole time and I was "mom" to everyone there, they had stickers and all sorts of entertaining toys to help them check her eyes, even if she was more interested in avoiding eye contact and being 100% disobedient :) We'll blame that on the fact that we had to wake up super early to get there for our 8:30 appt...
Anyways, they got a pretty good general assessment of what's going on, and luckily they figure the vision in that eye is actually pretty good and "the eye moves really well", so that's a plus. Another plus is the fact that today was basically a "screening" day, we didn't meet the actual doctor, she's booked up a year out. I know, where's the plus in that you ask? Ahem, another answered prayer, literally while we were doing these initial tests, somebody cancelled for MONDAY!!! This is huge and will get the ball rolling so much faster for us in this area of Kalea's health, what a blessing. The orthoptist that we met with today figures that we might get away with just patching the good eye for a while, which we have been preparing for, and of course we know that could change when the ophthalmologist gets a better look with our next round of tests- including the dreaded "pupil dilation" that will give us a look at the back of the eye and the health of it. It's all very interesting stuff. Anyways, we know that we are in good hands, they even gave us some "homework" so we are moving forward with that, and now just have to worry about making sure that we prep Kalea for the eye drops on Monday... Just that alone might be traumatic enough for me to never want to show my face there again. Let's pray that she stays relatively calm while she freaks out about not being able to see...

 

Pretty soon this will just be a fun "party trick"!