The day of the Patch!

Yesterday Avery had her follow up appointment since getting her glasses. Now when we found out she needed glasses the optometrist also said that Avery had a lazy eye. Most people think that a lazy eye is one that turns in or crosses when actually it is an eye that doesn't focus as well as the other. This usually occurs in the second year of life and when one eye doesn't focus as well as the other, the stronger eye takes over. Catching this at an early age (before 7yrs old) increases the chances that this can be reversed. Avery has been very worried about wearing a patch, and we have been praying everyday that the glasses would have been enough to correct this problem but yesterday we found out that in was inevitable, she would need a patch. Today was the first day of using the patch. I bought some little eyepatches yesterday. They are oval in shape and are flesh coloured which to Avery just wasn't good enough. She was determined to have a pink square eye patch. So we got out the scissors, cut the round edges off, and then she proceeded to colour it pink. On it went without any fuss! Then on went the glasses. Avery told me this morning that because she was little her broken eye could be fixed if she wore her patch (Grandma told her this yesterday.) Our prayer is that after four weeks of patching, three days on with one off, except for playschool, dance, and skating that it will be enough to make the brain recognise the impulses from the left eye and the sight in this eye will improve. Avery is an amazingly brave little girl with such insight. She lives life to the fullest and has such a wonderful little spirit. It will take much more than having to wear a patch over her eye to stop her from doing everything she wants to do.