Glasses For Selena

For a while now we have watched as Selena has had some quirks that seemed very unexplainable. Her fear of stairs has increased, she got unsure of her self at times over stepping up or down curbs, and a sudden dislike to storm grates. Some things like the stairs in her younger days were easily explained since she really hadn’t  experienced many stairs. Other things just were not fitting any explanation. Last year she was great in t-ball, this year all of a sudden she could not catch the ball for nothing, her balance seemed so off, which Selena had always had great balance.

After having her eyes checked at the Pediatrician and discovering she could not read the same line on the chart with her right eye as she could with her left eye and her hesitation to even try made this Mama observe her even closer. Once back in school after a long break, I began to notice my fluent reader suddenly adding words that were not on the page, switching words around and having problems tracking which sentence she had just read causing her to repeat the sentence or skip the next sentence. I’ve heard other parents of young children complain about these same things, but unlike their explanations things just did not seem right to me that words should be jumping around on the page.

The other day Selena was asked in one of her assignments to draw a square, circle and triangle. I was appalled when she could not complete the task before her, when I knew she could easily draw these shapes. It was at this point Papa and I sat down and discussed getting Selena’s eyes tested. The news that was to come was of some great concern.

Selena has a lazy eye, while it did not start showing the outward signs of crossing over or not moving with the other eye, her lazy eye affected the sight in the eye itself. Sweet Selena’s brain was shutting off to that eye and she is literally going blind. The term for this is Amblyopia. Can we correct it? There is a good, very good probability that we can, with corrective lenses and a regime of patching the good eye.

Selena was less then happy to pick out a pair of glasses, but did find a very cute pair. She is also less then happy to think of wearing a patch. I know we will get her through it.

I can not emphasize enough that if you are seeing characteristics with your young readers, where they are experiencing headaches, complaining of words jumping across the page, sudden changes in their normal skills, get them in and have their eyes tested. It might not be anything too concerning, but at least it will give you the peace of mind that everything is OK.

Stay tuned as we blog our way through this adventure, and share the outcome with all of you.