Honest Feelings

I admit many of the things I'm going to post here aren't "right", but they're how I'm feeling.

My 4yo was diagnosed with astigmatism this week and we're currently waiting on her first pair of glasses to arrive.   I'm the only one on either side of our families that has decent vision (I wear glasses for night driving, but that's about it) so we knew it was a matter of time until our kids wore glasses, but we weren't expecting it this young (we were thinking around 9-13ish) and we weren't expecting astigmatism since it's not real common in our families.

**Learning that she's probably never truly seen clearly saddens me.

**I'm thankful she will be able to wear glasses to see clearly.

**I'm excited for her reaction when she gets her glasses and sees clearly for the first time.

**Finding out she's probably never seen clearly makes me wonder if I should've caught it sooner.

**I'm a little sad that her precious face is going to be behind glasses, until she is ready to wear contacts (we assume she'll want to eventually).

**She's already told me she's sad she's going to be the only kid in her class who wears glasses.

**I'm scared about her "fitting in".

**I have friends with daughters who started wearing glasses in preschool and I know the mean things that have been said to them.  I'm borrowing trouble by worrying about my girl having to hear the same things.

**I'm worried about quality of life with being as active as she wants (running around and worrying about her glasses falling off).

In the grand scheme of things I know this is MINOR.  I also am thankful that this is her only vision issue.  Except for the astigmatism her eyesight is fine right now (she is equally nearsighted and farsighted) so once that's corrected she'll be fine.

Here's how we found out that she needs glasses at 4:

A few months ago my son was studying the 5 senses in Kindergarten.  One day he brought home an eye chart his teacher had printed out.  My son wanted us to hang it up at home and do it.  To him it was a game so I measured 20 feet down the hallway and he showed us "how well he can see". Because my daughter didn't want to be left out she tried it.  We noticed she was struggling with some of the bottom lines.  I called the optometrist office where my husband and I go (and where our son went when he was 5) and asked if they'd see her.  I was told that for kids her age they recommend a pediatric optometrist and gave me a number.   I never got around to scheduling anything for her (Mommy fail).   Last month she hurt her eye, causing it to be red and watering constantly.   I called the optometrist that the rest of the family sees and said, "I know she's younger than you usually see, but can you get her in?".  I got a same day appointment and they did a quick assessment of her vision to get a baseline.  I noticed she was struggling around the 20/40 part of the chart, but seemed to be doing pretty well around 20/60.  Red flag, but I was (hoping) it was just because of the injury.   A few days later we went for a follow up and I noticed she was struggling in the exact same spot.  I asked the optometrist, "When do I bring her in for her first exam?" and was told any time.  I scheduled the appointment and we went Monday where we got the diagnosis.

The interesting thing is she's already reading and hasn't had any trouble at preschool with reading or writing so we really hadn't had cause to be concerned.   My husband and I were talking last night and we'd both separately remembered during the day yesterday that she used to stand close to the TV and we'd shoo her away telling her to back up.  Now we're wondering if she was doing it to see better . . .

Since she's younger than we were told to do the kids' first exam (just before starting school) I'm thankful for catching it as early as we did, but I'm also a bit sad that she's having to deal with this already (and knowing she most likely was born with this eye shape and has never seen correctly) makes me a bit sad.

Finding glasses small enough for her face (41mm) was extremely challenging, but we finally found ONE pair yesterday so we ordered them  (At previous places we could only find 43mm, which were too big.  The optometrist special ordered 42mms for her to try on because they didn't have any in stock).  My daughter was sad that all the "pretty" ones were too big for her, but I told her "You're going to wear glasses for a long time [rest of her life] so when you get bigger you'll have lots of choices and can get pretty ones".

My husband had LASIK at some point before we met (we've been together 10 years) and my sister recently had it.  After doing some research we found out she could possibly be a candidate when she gets older, if she chooses to do it so my husband and I found that encouraging (Besides, who knows what kind of technology will be available to her when she's an adult!).

All in all I know there are a million and one things to be thankful for and not upset about, but I've still struggled with feelings of sadness for her over the past few days.  Today I'm finding myself counting down the days until she gets them because I want her to be able to see everything without anything being "fuzzy".

Yesterday my daughter and I scrolled through Little Four Eyes as pictures of other kids her age (and younger) rocking their glasses :)