Why Contacts?!?

If you cannot tell by the title of this post, I'm addressing the next step in our road to Grant's vision.  It has taken me a good 3 weeks to write about it because I know this will be a long post.  If you don't read, I won't be offended.  :)  We've just had a lot of questions.  I'm trying to address all of the questions we have had, but keep in mind I'm no real expert.  :)  I can just speak from experience.  And I'm pretty sure I've read everything there is to read on the internet about Bilateral Congenital Cataracts.  (There's not much.)

Let me back up nearly two years.....

We are sitting in Dr. Metz's office, a man that we had just met, and he's telling us that our son is blind.  He is not even responding to light.  He then starts spitting out some things about some kind of cataracts.  None of which I understand, nor could I try to understand.  I was hysterical.  I remember one sentence he said that has always stuck, maybe because I've heard it time and time again.  We will do the surgeries to remove his lenses.  Then we will exhaust glasses, and once they are exhausted we will exhaust contacts, and when they are exhausted it will be time to do the lens implant surgery.  At that point we were going to stick with the glasses.

                                    

When we were looking in the optical shop at the glasses that would go on my two month old baby, it was more than I could bare at that point.  Our optician (who is literally like family to us now) told me that they would quickly become a part of him, and we wouldn't be able to hardly recognize him without them on.  Well, as we were leaving I didn't have too many nice things to say about her.  They would NEVER become a part of who he was.

You want to know the funny thing?  She was right.  Everywhere we have been in the last two years people have known Grant.  I've even had local people tell me they have seen the video of him seeing for the first time, and I had no clue who these people were!  He is such a doll in his glasses.

So, why contacts?  Why rock the boat?  Believe me, we didn't do it until we had to, but when you are looking at your child like this more often than you care to admit, you know it's time to do something.

So, he's a toddler.  What does this have to do with his eyes?

Here is an example (the best I could do - I took a picture of the computer screen with my phone) of "normal" vision on the top and +9 on the bottom.

Now, Grant's prescription is more than double that bad.  He is at a +22.  Now imagine putting extremely thick glasses on someone who can't see.  IF the glasses hit the eye right where they are suppose to, he could see.  If it was off, it was distorted.  On top of that.  What you see in the above picture is what his peripheral vision was like.  He had none.  So, all of the area that we take for granted being able to see (i.e. if you look up, down or to the side), he couldn't.  This caused him to run into things all of the time.  Once he ran into them the glasses pushed in on his face (because he's two and is going 90 to nothing all the time) and that's where the black eyes came in.

So now we have officially exhausted the glasses.  They just haven't been working as well for him since he's become mobile.  Our PO has told us study after study has shown that the visual development is the same with aphakic (no lenses present) patients who use glasses or contacts.  He also told us that it tends to be easier if you start using contacts when they kindof understand what you are doing vs. in the beginning.  There are lots of different opinions on what people like better.  I do think this was the best route for us.  We were hoping for contacts around when he turned three, but he is doing FANTASTIC!!!  I doubt I will ever be able to post a video like this....

BUT it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  We have gotten them in and out in about 10-30 seconds every time.  He hates it when we are doing it, but he shouts, "I DID IT!" as soon as they are in.  And you know what?  He hasn't ran into anything in the last three weeks!  No more black eyes!  At least not from glasses.  ;)  He is a boy.

So, the point of all of this is to explain the many questions we have had.  No we aren't doing this for vanity reasons.  I LOVE his glasses, and it's taking some getting use to seeing him without them.  Everyone else can now see just how much he looks like his daddy!  :)  And once we exhaust the contacts (we are praying he will be about school age - another post for another day as to why) and we have the surgeries for the implants, he will then have glasses again.  So we haven't seen the end of glasses in this house!  We are far from it.  We have seen the end of patching at least - for now!  :)

Like Dr. Metz said the other day, the first set of surgeries was just the beginning of a long, hard journey.  It's a journey that is totally worth it, and there is nothing we wouldn't do for this boy.  Thank you all for your support and prayers!