Today we went to a new ophthalmologist for Stevie. I decided to find a new eye doctor when it took the last one over a week just to return a phone call. I wanted to bring him in and they had no appointments available for 3 months. She was just way too busy. And when there’s something I’m concerned about, I don’t want to wait a week or 3 months or 6 months. I want to get it taken care of ASAP. So off to the new guy.
There aren’t many pediatric ophthalmologists in LA (the one thing we don’t have an abundance of) so we drove about 30 minutes to Arcadia. When I first arrived at the office, I was already annoyed. The bug had a rough morning, so he was grouchy and the place seemed a little crowded. They wanted me to fill out {more} forms, he was fussing and I was just overwhelmed and tired in general. When we got into a room, the nurse asked a bunch of questions (that I had just answered on the forms) and then we waited.
To my sweet surprise, the wait wasn’t that long, and the doctor was a really nice, older guy. You can tell he’s been doing this for awhile. He quickly and sweetly looked Stephen over and we talked about my concerns. They dilated his eyes for the exam and we waited about 20 minutes before the actual eye exam.
I was shocked how smoothly it went. If you remember the last one, it took 4 people to hold the baby down as he screamed his lungs out while the doc examined him. This time it was just me and the doctor, no tears. He used little tricks to make the baby look where he wanted instead of forcing his head one way and his body another – and it was just a huge relief! At that instant Dr. Fierson won me over.
The diagnosis for the little guy is that he is extremely far-sighted, more so in his right eye. Plus the ptosis is covering his right eye enough that it is making it lazy – because he is not using it to it’s full potential, it’s not developing properly. Baby glasses will be here in about a week. He tried them on in the office and boy, did he look cute. We will also have to patch his good eye for 2 hours a day to force his bad eye to do some work. We’ll see how he likes that!
They’ll look kind of like this! (Just smaller and blue)So between his helmet and glasses, we will have the cutest little nerd on our hands this summer.
Jaana- put Stevie up to the computer, I’m gunna wisper in his ear….
Stevie- you have some awesome parents! They love you and love to have fun with you. You are one lucky dude.
Feeling your pain exactly. We patch too for two hours.
The Miraflex glasses are the best for babies. I hope you got some of those! They have awesome colors on their website. As far as eye doctors goes…ugh. It’s so hard. We have a really good lady here, but her nurses are terrible. They have really strong accents and Jonas can barely understand them. The first appt. took 3 hours.
I can’t imagine if he was a baby! You go girl. What a mom you already are. You’re amazing and Stevie is the cutest thing I’ve seen in a long time!
Awesome! I am glad you went to another doctor who clearly knew how to handle little ones. I can’t wait to see his little face with new glasses (no offense Lara!). Stephen is getting cuter by the day -looking forward to your possible visit. Love you and miss you.