Eli's Eyes

It's scary to think that something is not quiet right with one of your children. Thomas was in the NICU for 11 days after being born 6 weeks early. God once miraculously healed Lily of Meningitis, and now, Elisha needs surgery.

Bea, I, and many others have noted how cross-eyed Eli is. He is 5 months old now and his right eye tends to settle right up against his nose, while his left eye is tracking straight or off looking at something else in the room.

My sister, who also had a lazy eye when she was young, and currently has a son with a lazy eye, said, "Hey little brother, you need to get Eli's eyes checked out. They are a little too crossed." We didn't really pursue it initially because both Thomas and Lily had googly eyes that passed with age. A few weeks later Bea took Eli in to have a rash looked at when the Dr. noticed how his eyes were tracking differently. (They sometimes remind us of those plastic eyes that wobble all over everywhere.) She says they are "way too googly." It noticeably concerned her.

So, she made the arrangements for Eli to go see an ophthalmologist. I managed to arrange for some time off of work, and off we go.

The nurse that first examined Eli was wonderful. She had definitely worked with kids before. She was able to keep Eli's attention, and get all her initial testing done fairly quickly. She also worked well with Lily and Thomas in the room.




Then the Dr. came in and did several more tests (pictures below). After some discussion, the Dr. did confirm that Eli is cross-eyed, and that it is pretty severe. Ultimately, he recommend surgery to reposition muscles on his eyes. The surgery is more successful when the vision in both eyes is even. Of course the vision in his left eye is stronger. So in the interim, we will be using a patch about 3 hours a day to try to get the eyes to equalize for the next 2 months. In February we will go back to have his vision reevaluated and to see if the disparity between his eyes has improved. Surgery will probably be scheduled that day. It is possible but highly unlikely that patching alone will cause improvement enough for the surgery to be unnecessary.

We have been patching for a couple of days now, and Eli seems to be dealing with it well. He is starting to look at things more with both eyes, instead of just with the one.