Eye Patching

A little over two months ago Cayman saw her eye doctor. Her prescription glasses were not helping to restore the vision loss in her right eye. Orders were written for us to start patching her left eye for three hours a day. By blocking out her vision in her strong eye (the left one) forces her right eye to work and hopefully enabling it to get stronger, reversing the vision loss. If patching is not successful in reaching this goal surgery-talk will come up. Bleh!

Eye patching has been an adjustment in this household.

Cayman hated it strongly in the beginning, who's to blame her. I hated it. Who can blame me.

Once the patch was on, next comes the glasses, which she also hated. Then a few weeks later hearing aids were introduced to her. Oh my goodness! Can I just be honest and tell you that I found myself overwhelmed with emotion from all of this. I slapped a speech onto myself one morning trying to bring reassurance to my soul, "It's not like it's a shunt failure. You can handle this. It's not so bad. Cayman will adjust to it."

It was a fighting routine that I could not let slip between the cracks of everyday life, even though I felt the temptation to. Both Cayman's sight and hearing depended on it. It was not an option not to carry out this routine.

I am convinced that Cayman was convinced I was torturing her everyday though by making her wear this stuff. Again, it's that fine balance as a mother that I feel between stern and gentle.

I would sing her favorite songs {Itsy Bitsy Spider, The Wheels on the Bus, etc.} while I put all this 'stuff' on her each morning. For the most part the songs kept her mind distracted from what I was doing as well as kept those adorable, independent hands too busy to pull all the 'stuff' off.

Now, 5 months later of glasses wearing, 2 months later of eye patch wearing, and a little over a month later of hearing aid wearing, I can say it's all going so much smoother.

Cayman has survived the adjustment to all this 'stuff'. {And so did I}