An Eye Adventure

This week has seen a lot of progress clearing out clutter around here. We've made some cash selling things we no longer need, which feels great. I'm slowly checking off the boxes on my To-Do-Before-School list.

The start of school also marks the end of our employer-provided health insurance. I've been trying to get everybody's check-ups in and prescriptions filled before that happens. Dental is caught up and next week are physicals. This week my only spectacled child had his eye exam. His glasses made it nine months this time! The glue just won't hold anymore.

Aidan has had glasses since he was two (almost three) years old. We started noticing that when he looked at us from across a room his right eye wandered toward his nose. This disturbing phenomenon produced an emergency trip to the doctor (first child, you know). We were referred to a pediatric ophthalmologist, who prescribed Coke-bottle thick glasses and daily patching of Aidan's good left eye to correct his far-sightedness and strengthen the wandering eye's weak muscles by forcing it to work. We patched his eye for two years, up until he started kindergarten.

2010

Ian came along for the appointment. You know what the best conversation starter is? A baby. Especially the fourth baby who knows all the tricks to get someone's attention. We arrived at 9:25, twenty minutes early for paperwork, as instructed. As always, they like you to hurry up and wait. With a packed waiting room of 50+ there was barely a seat left. The next two and a half hours were spent testing the strength of the glass in the floor-to-ceiling windows of the children's waiting room, performing gymnastic feats off the chairs, and escaping Mama to explore hallways and exam rooms. I prayed none of the elderly patients waiting near us had heart conditions as I heard muffled gasps on a few occasions. I was able to read a couple pages of the book I brought in between saving Ian from himself. One elderly lady asked his name, called him a little Scotsman, and then told me the story of her recent trip to Scotland. She described archaeological excavations she had toured, and commented on the depravity of people nowadays who rely so heavily on technology and the disappearing art of making prune coffee cake. It was an interesting conversation.

He arrived with sandals on, but they proved to be a tripping hazard.

Talking to an old man...who in turn responded by waving his hands around.

The next challenge was waiting for the doctor in the exam room. Dr. M artfully told me on one of our last visits how expensive one of the little exam tools was, which, of course, was great incentive to keep little hands off.

My knees were screaming by the time the doctor came in, but no tools were broke. You can literally hear the (crunching) results of falling down two flights of stairs, knees first, in my early 20's.

All this waiting ended in good news. Aidan's eyes have improved, and we walked out of the clinic with a weaker prescription. We can slowly expect his eyes to improve as he gets older, and he may not need glasses by the time he's in high school. And we don't have to go back for another three years!