Big Day for a Little Girl

Will and I took Audrey to Iowa City last Thursday for an appointment with Dr. Drack and with a new doctor we hadn't seen yet--a Low Vision Specialist, Dr. Wilkinson. We met with Dr. Wilkinson first. He took out these large light gray cards with a patch of black and white stripes on one end. He would hold up a card to see if Audrey would look at the image then rotate the card to see if she would follow the image. If she did, he'd move on to the next card. Like the last card it would have the black and white stripes, but they were slightly smaller. Turns out this is the infant equivalent to the eye chart. We got to a point where Audrey no longer could distinguish the image on the side. He informed us that in low vision children, they would ideally like to see the child be at 20/200 by age 3. Audrey's vision was 20/200 at just 7 months old! Braille and a cane would not be needed and he was confident that she will be a visual learner. We were thrilled with such good news! Like any child, vision gradually improves over the course of the next several years. A child with normal vision will have their eyes mature at around 6-8 years old. A low vision child's eyes will mature somewhere around 8-10 years, or up to 12 years of age. We are anxious to see where she ends up on the spectrum but are thankful for the vision she has as she's doing better than we could've ever expected.

Up next we met with Dr. Drack. She was so happy to hear that things were going well and she had such rave reviews from Dr. Wilkinson and the AEA. After doing her usual eye exam, she recommended that Audrey be fitted with glasses--not only as eye protection but also with prescription lenses. Just like her mama, she is both farsighted and nearsighted. We were informed that they also ran out of blood to do the research on the KIF11 gene, so we were taken down to the Pediatric Clinic for another blood draw. And for Audrey being a tough draw, they luckily got what they needed the first time around. However when the nurse was transferring the blood by syringe into the different test tubes, an air bubble caused a 'pop' and blood sprayed everywhere. I got some on my pants and Audrey got some on her skirt and shirt. The nurse felt terrible. I couldn't care less--we had just received fabulous news from the doctors and only had to poke her once and got all the blood she needed. Audrey & I decided that our story was a mermaid attack, in case anyone asked. ;)

We then were escorted to Optical where we picked out her frames. With microcephaly there really was only was one option for eyeglasses that fit her face. We went with the Miraflex which have a lovely strap around the back to help keep them on. The ones we tried were gray--Audrey's will be pink. We think she looks adorable in them--she was less than enthused.

Just weeks ago I thought, "What if I hadn't sent the video to the pediatrician? What if we would've just assumed her eye flutters were normal and waited it out?" Since she's now doing so well now, part of me felt as though we would've saved ourselves a lot of heartache, stress and would've saved Audrey from poking and prodding. But after this appointment I have a totally different outlook on the past 7 months. It wasn't an easy journey, but now we are getting our daughter early intervention to help her see better than she would have if we had waited months/years before finding out she was low vision. Everything happens for a reason. I didn't see it while we were in the thick of it, but it's clear as day now. I am so thankful that we have had the support of friends and family to get through the tough stuff and that we are working with some of the best doctors in the field of pediatric ophthalmology. I now see the beauty of the journey.

#ophthalmology #miraflex #babyglasses