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2 Comments July 29, 2014 drworobec

Remember how my two-year-old daughter was diagnosed with amblyopia and got glasses this past Spring? Remember how I made her a book to help her understand?

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I’m happy to report than her vision has improved from only 20/80 to nearly 20/30 in just three short months! And her 3 hrs/day of eye-patching has been a non-issue too; from fishing to golfing to going for walks, if it happens first thing in the morning, she does it with an eye patch and she doesn’t complain.

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She’s a tough kid whose resiliency continues to surprise me. Thank you for your messages of support, your questions of concern, and your genuine interest in her well-being.

But here we go again. This time it’s my five-year-old son. We were warned back in April that his vision showed some concerns and he may require glasses in the future. So here we are. But no patching for him, much to his chagrin. “Please mom, can I wear a patch too?” he says. Sorry buddy, the patches are just for your sister. But the Ninja Turtles glasses? They’re all yours.

And you get your own book too.

2 Comments May 6, 2014 drworobec

*** This was originally written as a Guest Blog post for Momstown.ca. ***

I believe that parenting is a group effort. And so the saying goes:

So when my 2-year-old daughter was diagnosed with amblyopia last month, I turned to my village.

* As an aside, amblyopia is an eye disorder that involves decreased vision in an eye that otherwise appears normal. In her case, this visual impairment is severe, and she needs glasses and daily eye-patching to ‘teach’ her left eye to function.

Someone suggested making a book for her to illustrate the process of what was happening to her. Brilliant. At just-barely-two, her comprehension is much higher than her verbal communication skills, and a book seemed like the perfect option to explain this experience. So, with some construction paper and a smile, I made her this:

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And it worked like a charm. It’s her favorite book, we read it multiple times a day, and she gets it. Her glasses are helping, her eye-patching is helping, and we’re gonna be just fine.

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