Pediatric Optometrist Update

Sitting in the fancy chair like a big girl.

We have now taken Evie to two different pediatric optometrists. One being her regular optometrist, and the other was someone new to us and new to what is going on with Evie. The optometrist that was new to us was very quick to notice Evie’s eyelid and started asking questions right away while checking her eye. Evie was interested in everything around her and kept wanting to hold some of the different tools that the optometrist uses. One thing I can easily make for her as it was an LED light that blinked different colours attached to a popsicle stick. Ever see a cat chase a light on a wall? This is that same sort of trick to keep young kids attention while looking at their eyes. This optometrist is wanting to send us for another referral to get another opinion on her eyelid. So we are now waiting on that.

Going down the fun slide that had tubes that spin as you slide down.

Since we had made the trek all the way out to West Vancouver we decided to go for a little walk down to the park we knew was nearby and let Evie play for a bit. It was nice to just relax as these appointments can sometimes cause us to stress out about what is going on and our uncertainty about whether or not everything is ok, or if we need to take other measures. This park is incredible with a drift wood playground, and even a large xylophone for kids to play. I’m hoping to come back in the summer so Evie can play in the water park there.

Squishing Daddy’s nose.

She was so good during this appointment, and we were hungry because it was well after lunch time when we got back to our side of the bridge we decided to go out for lunch. Evie got to enjoy a very special treat, some chocolate milk. She had a few sips and offered up the rest to Jason and I.

Enjoying a very special treat.

We also had an appointment for her regular checkup with the pediatric optometrist we were originally referred to. Several friends of ours have been so kind about reaching out to us, several of whom have also seen this optometrist either for themselves when they were a kid or with their own children. This has been a huge encouragement to us. We have continued to pray about everything that is going on, that we would get answers and find a little bit of peace for now.

Today was a more thorough checkup than the last one we had there for Evie. I am very thankful for that, as the last appointment is part of what caused us to want to get another opinion. This time the doctor did say that he does feel it is likely Evie will need surgery in the future to correct the ptosis of her eyelid. He does want to hold off til she is older, but we are to continue to come in every 6 months to check her vision and the eyelid. A lot of kids tend to get bullied about their eyelids once they get into elementary school and that is when some end up getting surgeries. If you can wait til they are even older (ie. 16+ years old) is even better that way the patient can remain awake and the outcome of the surgery is usually much more symmetrical.

So, we continue to pray that Evie will have no complications from her eyelid. That it will not impact her vision so that we can wait til she is older. We will also be praying that as she gets older that she will be surrounded with kind and respectful peers. We also pray that we will be able to help give her the words to explain what is going on if needed… but we will cross that bridge in the future. For now we have some more answers than what we did before.

Another big chair, this time she got to cuddle a toy monkey.