Caleb Needs Glasses

While grocery shopping yesterday they were doing eye screenings. Caleb has had red, itchy eyes and has complained several times about having a hard time reading. He did the screening and it did not come out very good, so we went and made an appointment to see the eye doctor.

We went to his appointment later yesterday afternoon and I went back with him. The doctor has the letters he sees up on the wall so I was able to see what he was supposed to see. I knew pretty immediately he was going to have to have glasses. B, D, O, and E were all O's. T, E and F were all F. V and Y were both Y, etc.

He got very frustrated with the eye doctor when he was having trouble reading the letters. She kept telling him to calm down, and I did too. I finally had to tell her that he thinks he is always right and is very independant so he gets mad when he can't do something he is trying to do. By the end of the part where he had to say the letters he saw he was almost in tears!

He has an astigmatism. His left eye is not seeing well and his right eye is straining to correct what the left eye is having a problem with. She also noticed that he has SEVERE (on a scale from 1-4 she said his were a 4 and 1/2) eye allergies. She showed me that when you pull his eyes down and look at the inside of his lower lid, it is bright red and should be pink. She said under the microscope all of that red is tiny little blisters. He has eye drops he has to use everyday, twice a day to try to take care of that. She said it will take two to three works for it to start helping and could take several months to clear it up (he did not get it overnight and it will not go away overnight was her comment). He has to wear the glasses all day unless playing outside (thank goodness), any reading, tv watching, computer, etc.

Before we even got a pair of glasses picked out he was asking about contacts. I told him that if he could keep up with his glasses and take care of them for a while (a year +) then we would look into contacts. I am not even really sure how old he has to be before he can wear them. I asked if he knew he had to touch his eyes to put them in and he said yes and demonstrated - I guess he has seen Daddy do it enough!

So we went and picked out two pairs of glasses for him. That way he can leave one at home and one at school. I think carrying them back and forth is where he is going to get into trouble as far as losing or breaking them. He picked out a pair of gold frames and a pair of denim-colored frames and got two SpongeBob cases for them. He really loves the gold ones. He likes the denim ones but said the gold ones are the ones he would wear most. If he wears them like he is supposed too, then he will wear them home everyday and we will just have an extra pair, but we will see what he does!

He was upset he did not get to wear the gold glasses home. He did not understand that they had to send off and get his lens put in a brand new pair of frames. When he gets them by the end of the week, I will post a picture in each pair. I guess this will just make him look like the Einstein we all know he is!!