One thing I failed to mention is that during DJ's initial evaluation of his left eye, he would tell us that he couldn't see, or we thought he was just mentally worn out from the ordeal. At the time, I didn't think anything of his comment about his not being able to see, attributing it to the fact that I was covering his right eye with my hand since he wouldn't leave the glasses or the patch on. And with one eye covered, "I can't see" isn't that far fetched a comment.
About 40 minutes after he started dilating (and about 400 "I want to go bye-byes"... he was being very insistent and I think it's because he didn't want to go through again what he'd already gone through), Dr. Collins took him back in "to play peekaboo" with him (i.e. officially refract him). This was a far less painful process than when we were covering his eyes. In fact, DJ was an angel.
Finally, she tells me that DJ has a very wide margin of refraction between his two eyes, with his right eye being normal (i.e. a little far sighted) for his age, and his left being very far sighted. Because of this, DJ is over-compensating with his right eye rendering his left eye weaker...and therefore, lazy.
This diagnosis explains a ton of things.
1. It explains his violent reaction when we were trying to make him read with his left eye only today. It effectively hurts him to do it for all intents and purposes.
2. It explains why he seems to be just a touch more clumsy when it comes to avoiding things on his left side. This is an observation we have realized in retrospect.
Lazy eye, when caught this early, is very treatable. We'll start with glasses and see how it goes from there. The prescription is actually weaker than his actual refraction, but Dr. Collins wants to reduce the chance of his wholly rejecting the glasses by hammering him with the full refraction at first. Then Dr. Collins wants to see him again in 2 months to see if he's made any progress.
Honestly, the reason we found this is because DJ had a clogged tear duct as a baby, and saw Dr. Collins to treat it. She noticed, at the time, that he was very far sighted as compared to the average child his age. She suggested seeing her again 6 months after the tear duct surgery, as both a post-op and to check his refraction. At that appointment, everything eas normal, and said to come back in 2 years. Here we are 2 years later. Thank you, Dr. Collins because honestly, he wasn't showing any obvious signs due to his ability to over-compensate with his right eye.
I am really surprised that DJ is still dilated after 8 hours, but now he's going to sleep for the night and dilated pupils should be no issue. Hopefully they will be normal when he wakes up tomorrow!
If I said that this doesn't bother me, I'd be lying. I'm concerned he won't keep the glasses on, slowing down the treatment or forcing us to change treatment methods (e.g. eye patch, chemically, etc.). We are already struggling with potty training, and I have no illusions that this will trigger him to regress. Plus, we don't want to hold off on giving him his NEW big boy bed because it'll be too many changes in his world at once.
So that ends my update, I guess. I suspect I'll be wearing my glasses around him faaaaaar more often to help be a good example.
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