The Literal Sense of Sight Seeing...

So today we had eye exam appts for all the kids. Mainly because Lindsay & Tiffiany have to have exams yearly (Lindsay) & every 6 months (Tiffiany) and figuring it was time to have the other kids examined we made appts for everyone to knock it all out at once.

There we are, all sitting in the waiting room as each child is taken back for the initial check before seeing the Dr. Time to see the Dr. now and the boys are first in the long line of kids. So I’m sitting there, watching the examination and noticing lots of similarities from 6 years ago at Tiffiany’s first exam. Then I hear phrases like “oh wow” and “my goodness” coming from the Dr as he looks into Nathaniel’s eyes and of course as a Mother you begin to squirm in your seat wondering what these phrases mean, while knowing down deep inside it’s not gonna be good!

Nathaniel being himself in true fashion is squirming in his seat (the boy hates sitting still) and with his short attention span is really trying to do as instructed, at least as much as a 5 year old boy can. Then comes the news, the Dr. (who we love by the way) says that Nathaniel has the same vision problems that Tiffiany has (massive stigmatisms that without attempted correction can cause blindness) but while Tiffiany only has this in her right eye, Nathaniel has it in both! Shortly after that news was given Gabriel’s turn came and the same diagnosis was given only his are not as bad as Nathaniel’s but are still bad. This is about the time that I’m really wishing that twins didn’t share everything!

So, there we spend a good 30 mins with each child trying to get a prescription for them and it’s just not happening due to time constraints, their ages and attention spans etc… not to mention we have the other kids to deal with too, so now we have another appt set up for yet another attempt. What’s really frustrating to me however is the fact the soonest appt we could get was for almost 2 weeks away. Here I know the importance of getting this taken care of so my boys can actually see, and I have to wait 2 whole weeks?! UGH.

The appts continued on and finally after almost 3 hours of being there we walked out of the office with 1 new pair of glasses ordered for Tiffiany, Tara needing none (20/20 vision YAY!!!) and 4 boxes of new contacts in a variety of colors ordered for Lindsay along with a new appt for the boys again!

I wonder how many people really do take their vision for granted, I know that I used to before having my children deal with the vision issues they’ve dealt with. What is it like to not be able to see properly, I’m glad that I’ve never had to find that out, but am heartbroken to know that my children do know and will always know that without their glasses the world looks differently to them, strange and distorted!