Norah's eye appt...

Norah continues to love school. She is doing well, and last night as we were talking before bed, she was listing all the kids in her class. She really pays attention to their names, which is impressive. We started her first homework packet last night, which, if you have talked to Norah AT ALL about going to Kindergarten, she would have told you she was excited to do homework. Well, last night that was the same story...she enjoyed sitting down and working on her handwriting, also reading books.
When we took Norah to the Kindergarten screening, she had to see the school nurse, who tested her ears and eyes. Funny, but she passed the hearing test, and failed her eye test. Not really failed, we were just told to take her in and see the optometrist as it appeared to be about 20/30 vision. It really didn't surprise us too much, we both wear glasses. So, at the end of June, I had an eye exam scheduled for myself, and Norah came along with me for hers. The optometrist did all of the testing, Norah started to get a little nervous when he told her he might put some eyedrops in, and agreed 20/30 in her left eye and 20/20 in her right eye. Then he noticed a little haziness in her left eye. He had me look, and mentioned it could be one of a few things. Either a cataract OR possibly something like Retinoblastoma. What!?! My jaw must have dropped, because he tried to say "It's probably not, but I'll stop there. I'm going to refer you to a Pediatric Ophthamologist, I'm sure they see this kind of stuff all of the time." My heart dropped into my stomach for a minute...wow. So, of course later that night, I did what I absolutely shouldn't do, google retinoblastoma and pediatric cataracts. I was pretty certain it wasn't the retinoblastoma - that looked way to severe on the google images, but in any case, made an eye appt. for Norah for the Pediatric Ophthamologist for today (7-27-10.)
In the meantime, with Norah's history of HATING eyedrops - and I mean holding her down, prying her eyes open, while she is screaming - we bought some Natural Tears for conditioning. My boss has done some nursing work in the Phillipines, and when she has gone to work with the kids who have to have cataract surgery, they hate the drops before the surgery, too, but a few weeks before, they start giving them natural tears. By the time the surgery comes around (after cataract surgery drops are MANDATORY every few hours)- the kids are giving drops to themselves, so this suggestion came from her. It worked. Norah wasn't giving drops to herself, but she was actually asking for them, and then tipping her head back in the chair to let us administer them. Today at the Dr's office, Scott reported that she did JUST FINE with the DR putting the drops in. Big sigh of relief!!!
Anyways, Norah DOESN'T HAVE retinoblastoma, but a small cataract on the side of her left eye. Barely in her vision, but is obstructing it a little. So, surgery at such a young age can be risky, and especially with her cataract being so small, surgery isn't totally necessary right now. We will have to do follow up visits, though, so they can monitor the growth of it. She has her next visit in 3 months, so I will keep it posted here on the blog.