Do You See What I See?

When I began this blog post earlier today from the optometry waiting room, I intended to take it in a completely different direction than I will now. Initially, I meant to muse on the warm fuzzy feeling I hoped to have in the coming months while patiently lingering in other clinic waiting rooms. I was going to comment on how boringly plain and insipid the room was but regardless, I was ready and willing - even looking forward - to the bleakness and lack of esthetics a typical waiting room offers for the sake of a happy, healthy, surrogate pregnancy experience. With a great big *sigh* and an air of self-sacrifice, I would somehow endure for the sake of the unborn new life I would diligently carry and protect. I would serve a sentence of solitude in a stale waiting room and willingly be taken back into the bowels of said clinic over and over to be poked, prodded and done who knows what other unimaginable things to for the deliverance of a blissfully perfect new infant child.

And I shudder.

Right about now I wish I could go back in time and slap my own self-righteous, narcissistic self in the face and cry myself to sleep at the pettiness of it all. You see, all the while I've been romanticizing this whole surrogacy process in my head, my oldest son Dakota; my handsome, beloved first born child, has practically been blind to the world around him.

Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but not much of one. Have you ever imagined what the world might look like through the eyes of someone with extreme hyperopia (farsightedness)? I can honestly say I never have. Maybe some of my blog followers are farsighted and can relate. I, on the other hand, never thought twice about the possibility of my children being so deficient in sight that it impacted the way they interpreted the world and I certainly never, ever, ever imagined that if they were found to have such a deficiency, that it would be after many, many years - 7 years & 8 months to be exact - before we would discover it and seek to correct it.

Oh. My. God.

The thought of it instantly brings tears to my eyes and a vice grip to my larynx. How could this happen?? How could we not know?

Let me back up. So there I was, in all my self-involved glory, blogging away on my phone while waiting for Dakota's eyes to dilate in the optometry waiting room on the 5th floor of the base hospital. We were there for a specific reason. (Obviously...and no, not for me to lament upon my possible future visits to dreary clinic waiting rooms!) Earlier this week, Monday to be precise, James had taken Dakota to the very same floor for an eye exam elicited by a letter we received in the mail from his school.

"Dear Parent or Guardian: I recently gave your child a vision screening test. The enclosed results of the screening indicate that your child needs further professional evaluation..." -signed C. Wilson, RN


Fair enough. Even though I had asked our pediatrician once or twice about Dakota's eyes crossing when he ate or focused in on close-range objects and been assured that as long as his eyes didn't remain fixated he was fine. I quickly and without much thought, called the appointment hotline and scheduled an eye exam. That was shortly before Christmas time so we had to wait. No problem at all I thought. Surely its nothing serious. I even contemplated the thought of canceling the appointment because it was the afternoon of Dakota's first day back to school after Christmas break. I grimace at the thought.

James sweetly volunteered to take both boys with him to the appointment alone so I could take a nap. Now I'm sure you've gathered at this point that much more came of this routine exam than originally anticipated which is why I feel like a real louse of a parent for not being at that original visit to speak with the doctor. Not to doubt James' ability to retain information but you see in my mind, regardless if it overwhelms the physician, I much prefer for both of us to go to our children's appointments whenever possible. Two ears are good, but four are better and when it comes to the health of your children, four ears, two brains and two mouths are far better than half of each. Especially when one is a mommy brain and our male pediatrician (for which I have considerably less respect for) is politely and inadvertently condescending and crass with his pursed lips and quick, flippant demeanor. His eyes rolling back in his head when he explains something to this mere mortal of a mommy only adds to his charm, let me tell you. There I go trying to salvage my maternal reputation again...curse me! Back to my son.

During this original appointment for which I was not privy, the optometrist determined that further testing was needed. A visit for today was scheduled and at 2pm, after a rushed retrieval of Dakota from the elementary school, we arrived on the 5th floor ready for answers. I was concerned to be sure, but not panicked or on edge. In fact, I was rather relaxed. I knew that whatever came of our appointment, we would handle it and everything would be okay. What I didn't anticipate was how shocked and how incredibly inferior I would feel about what we found out.

My son, as previously mentioned has extreme hyperopia. He is so severely farsighted, (only able to see things clearly at a distance, if at all) that as professional a man as he is, being an officer in the United States Air Force, even the optometrist couldn't contain himself when he saw the numbers on the screen that indicated the degree of deficiency in my sons eyes. His immediate response was, and I quote, "Wow! That's incredible!" To give you an idea...a small example of how badly his vision is, I have minor myopia (nearsightedness) that is correctable with a -1.75 lens in my right eye and a -1.25 lens in my left. With that degree of deficiency, I have a hard time seeing objects at a distance and would not feel safe backing out of my driveway, much less driving without the assistance of either my contacts or my glasses. Even .25 degrees either way (positive or negative) makes a noticeable difference to extent that if I were to wear even a -2.00 pair of glasses or lenses for any length of time, I would expect to get that oozy-woozy feeling and undoubtably suffer a nice throbbing headache. Anyone living with a vision impairment can most surely relate and understand what I mean.

Dakota's degree of deficiency on the farsighted (+) end of the spectrum is astounding. The correction for his right eye is +8.50 and for his left, an unbelievable +9.25. As a seasoned medical officer who has likely treated thousands of patients, it was unnerving to hear the optometrist say that in all his years as an eye care professional, he has only heard of one other child with a visual impairment greater than our son has and that child was older than Dakota. One other child. I was completely and utterly dumbfounded. I had to force myself to focus so I could retain at least some of the information he was relaying to us. He was almost jovial about it. Not in a malicious way but in a way that seethed excitement for the miraculous change this would be for our son. His whole world is set to change dramatically!

The unbelievable part of this story is how well he has coped and adjusted to this disability that for all he knew, was the way everyone viewed the world. While talking with us and simultaneously examining Dakota's eyes with that instrument that shines a horizontal light, he would excitedly ask questions as they came to mind. "How does he do in school?" Very well, he's almost a straight A student. "Amazing." "Does he like to read or does he read well for his grade level?" Yes and yes, very well. "Amazing."

Yes Dr. P, I'm beginning to agree with you. Not that every mother doesn't think of her children as amazing but his ability to overcome such a deficit of sight is, well, pretty damned amazing! He informed us (as if we didn't already know at that point) that Dakota is quite a remarkable young man and that during the course of his career he's had 19 year old basic trainees that complained, whined and fussed over the difficulties and struggles they've had to endure with half the visual impairment Dakota has lived with and grown accustomed to without so much as a whimper.

After such a huge revelation I'm left with mixed feelings. The thought of him spending most, if not all of his life adjusting and re-adjusting just to see everyday things is heartbreaking. Just imagining him straining his little eyes to keep up and read in school, the world around him being so far short of what it should be...so unclear and out of focus. It makes my stomach churn. I hurt for those years my son struggled just to see the little things I see every single day with ease. Children with hyperopia are born with it. I wonder about those first few years of his life. Snuggling my baby and gazing into his eyes, when he looked at me, did he see nothing but a big blurry glob of a face? (Which somedays wasn't such a bad thing but you know...) I'm also incredibly excited. Anxious to witness a change and hear how wonderfully his world opens up and  revel in how much more he exceeds in school because he can finally, clearly, deeply, see.

The best I can do is make things better for him as soon as possible. Because his prescription is so strong, he'll have a series of new lenses to gradually adjust to the correction. His first pair will start with about a third the strength of his actual prescription. In a few months we'll return to the optometrist to see how he's tolerating the strength, be re-evaluated and if all is well, graduate to the next strength and so on.

After the dust had settled this afternoon, my first notions were to hop online and research as quickly and as furiously as possible -- which I did and found many, many parents discussing their children's "extreme" hyperopia in the +6 to +7 range, not one so far in the range Dakota falls -- and next, to express my heartfelt appreciation to his school nurse, Miss Cindy for her exam that led to this discovery.

Oh Miss Cindy, how I have a mind to run, not walk straight into your office Monday morning and give you the biggest, fiercest, strongest Mama-Bear hug I've ever given anyone my entire life! Thank you for that letter. Your exam may very well have saved my sons eyes.