Our Optical Journey and Small Miracle!

Here is Brodyn the day of his planned eye surgery! He is smiling because through diligent patching, and keeping his glasses on, many prayers and fasting by us and our amazing family, who we love so dearly...this little boy's surgery was canceled!  We first noticed Brody's left eye drifting inward, shortly after he turned three, it seemed to become more noticeable as time went by, and family and friends started to notice! Feeling a little nervous I talked with my sister-in-law Stephanie, who works for Dr. Smith and we scheduled an appointment to get his eyes checked.

He sees well out of both eyes. In most cases when a person has a lazy eye they see poorly out of the eye that is drifting. Eventually the brain stops using it, and uses only the dominant eye.

Initially Dr. Smith didn't think he had a lazy eye and thought maybe it appeared to drift because of his wide bridge between his nose. So we went home thinking every thing was normal.

In the next few months we still felt something wasn't right with his eye, so we went for a 2nd opinion with Dr. Siler. He said that yes there was a slight possibility he had a lazy eye, and gave us a Rx for glasses and also said we could go visit with Dr. Hoffman a strabismus specialist down at Primary Children's Hospital.  We took the Rx Dr. Siler gave us back to Dr. Smith and asked his opinion again and he concurred with the Rx and put a bifocal in it, and said we could either go to the specialist or try the glasses for a few months and see how the eye did. 

We patched Brody's dominant right eye, 6hrs each day along with wearing his glasses for 3 months. At our next visit with Dr. Smith we decided to schedule an appointment with Dr. Hoffman at Primary Children's Hospital!

After visiting with Dr. Hoffman a wave of relief flooded over us.  Dr. Hoffman new exactly what was wrong and how to fix it.  As a parent that's all you ask for is for someone to know what is wrong and how to remedy it.  We wished we would have seen Dr. Hoffman earlier!  Dr. Hoffman gave us the correct Rx for his condition and Brody wore these new glasses for a few months until Dr. Hoffman decided we should schedule surgery.  We were so nervous for the surgery!  The Wednesday evening before the surgery Brodyn had a check-up scheduled with Dr. Hoffman to evaluate his eyes once more, before going through with the surgery! At his check-up the Dr. kept looking in his drawer and bringing out different lenses to test Brody's eyes, and then he just turns to us and says..."I can tell you one thing...this little boy is not going to have surgery tomorrow!"

I guess his eye had improved so much that if we did do the surgery the eye would be over corrected, and turn outwards! He is straight when looking at distance objects and will still cross when he looks at objects really close, so we have another check-up in 6wks to evaluate that, and if the eye is still crossing when looking at close objects he'll probably put the bifocal back into his lenses to train the eye to stay straight when looking at things close up.

On our journey through the patching, Brody had moments of annoyance with patching and wearing his glasses. In the beginning he'd take them off while playing and one time he took them off at a bead store called 'Beadles' that had a little kid's play area, and left them.  I didn't notice them missing until we got home. It was too late to call the store it had closed.  I worked the next morning, so the very chance I got I retraced our steps from the previous day.  I first checked  the sports academy thinking he took them off during tumbling but they weren't there, and then our next stop was Beadles and sure enough he'd taken them off while playing, I looked in the play area, nothing, but upon asking the ladies, one said..."does it have a little bifocal?" "YES" I said, "they are mine!!" 

Through it all this little boy has been amazingly mature and responsible about patching and wearing his glasses...and he's 3 yrs old! I asked Dr. Hoffman why his eyes improved so much when at the previous appointment surgery seemed inevitable! He said, it was because of good parenting and a great kid, who kept up with diligent patching and keeping the glasses on! I felt my peacock feathers fluff up!! I was such a proud momma!  

We are so glad we finally decided to visit with Dr. Hoffman. He looked at Brody for 5 seconds, and new exactly what type of condition he had which is 'Accommodative Esotropia', he changed his Rx, the Rx he had was not what he wanted for Brody, so he took the bifocal out for now and went up in strength a little! Instead of patching 6hrs he wanted us to patch only 1 hr, and then increased it to 2 hrs at his second check-up, and scheduled surgery!  Now we've cancelled surgery and may need the bifocal again at his next visit in 6 wks. I am so grateful we live in a day and age where something like this can be taken care of, we are so grateful for the help we received from all of Brody's Dr's! If it wasn't for Dr. Smith and Dr.  Siler we wouldn't have met Dr. Hoffman!!  

We are obviously not out of the woods yet, but we feel so immensely blessed to not have to do this surgery now! The possibility of surgery is still there but his odds have gone down! If anything we can at least lower his deductible and have more money saved if we do surgery in the future! My heart is so full and thankful to everyone who has prayed and fasted for my little one.

Of course you love your own child more than anything in this world, even yourself, but when you see how much friends and family love them as well it is emotionally overwhelming! Thanks to all the support letters, balloons, toys, hospital goody bag and phone calls we love you guys...thank you for loving Brodyn so much!