Thankful Thursday: Elaine’s Health

Today I am thankful for Elaine’s health…specifically her vision health.  Elaine was born with a spot on the lower side of her left iris.  The doctors never noticed it in the hospital or her initial pediatric appointments, so we brought it to their attention.  Originally we were told it was a Pterygium, but that it wouldn’t cause any vision problems.

 
You can see the “notch” in the bottom corner of Elaine’s left eye in this picture… {click to enlarge}

When Elaine was learning her colors, she learned all of them except pink and yellow.  She consistently got those ones mixed up…for a long time.  So we spoke with the doctor and she referred us to an ophthalmologist.  We thought it was a good idea to get checked out, especially after initial research said that pterygium are very rare in children.  We have had some insurance hiccups, but today we finally made it to the ophthalmologist.  {She knows her colors fine now, by the way}.

I was fascinated to see how they check children’s eyes.  Elaine matched pictures at different distances, and followed varying flashing colored lights.  They checked her prescription {since both Ben and I are nearsighted} also.  The doctor was a very nice Jewish man who made Elaine feel comfortable…until he put drops in her eyes to dilate them.  She did not like that at all!

Turns out that what Elaine has is called a limbus dermoid cyst.  Basically, it’s a piece of membrane that attached to her eye in the womb just as it was “zipping” into the ball shape.  The eye starts out flat, but later forms into the ball.  It “zips” together right at the spot where Elaine’s dermoid cyst is located.  She has perfect 20/20 vision with no astigmatism!  And the only complication of this cyst is that she will not ever be able to wear soft contact lenses.

I thought it was funny that as we were prepping Elaine for this visit, she insisted that there would be a boy doctor and a girl doctor, and that she would see them “bofe” {both}.  She also said she would cry a little, and then stop crying and be a good girl.  And…that’s pretty much how it happened!  The nurse was a lady who did the initial exam and prescription check.  The doctor was a nice man.  And she cried when she got drops in her eyes, but then she stopped!

Our appointment was in Manhattan, so we stopped at Central Park for a brief picnic before going into the office.