There are challenges to raising two very active boys who wear glasses. We are becoming so familiar to the optometrist’s for fittings, fixes and adjustments, it’s like the show ‘Cheers’ (everyone knows our name). Instead of ‘Norm!’ they shout out ‘Full Speed and T.Puzzle!!’ when we come through their doors. Full Speed’s glasses are by far the most precarious. Between his soccer games and spontaneous wrestling tendencies, one of his lenses keeps popping out of his frames. From experience, once a lens pops, it ain’t never gonna be the same.
All I can do is count myself lucky that the optometrist is nearby and pray for the invention of glasses that are boy-proof.
There is a positive side to having active boys with vision issues. It makes them more cautious especially at great heights and forces them to slow down a notch. Anything that slows down my always-in-motion boys at looming heights is a plus.
The downside is that when they were smaller both loathed to swing, they cried and screamed when introduced to a new climbing apparatus and they generally caused a scene if they felt unsafe. Through the years I have learned to adapt and so have they. I’ve learned when to push, when to back off and when to throw my hands up in defeat while taking a long draw of drink from my handy travel flask. Of course with time and age, the boys learned by doing that they are safe at the tops of a slides and Full Speed is now fearless (lucky me???).
Little T.Puzzle, well, he’s still a work in progress.
So, as I approached our outing to the play area at Chik-fil-a, I had very low expectations. T.Puzzle started out very cautiously and when he went down the slide he screamed and wailed. I was just about to wrap it up when he did something unexpected. He kept going. The more he went, the more confidence he built and by the end he was circling the climbing apparatus in a happy loop.
This kid is growing by leaps and bounds. I might just be able to retire my travel flask sooner than I thought. Most likely I will always hold onto it for sentimental reasons (at least that is what I will tell Mad Dog).
Mad Dog and I attended Full Speed’s year in review at his school. We have been lucky in terms of his placement with a teacher who can appreciate him. She has a son that is very ‘active’ as well and therefore finds Full Speed’s antics to be quite charming.
At the end of the session I asked her point blank if she felt his vision was impeding him in any way. Until now I have never asked this directly. I never wanted to make an issue out of something if there wasn’t one there. I also know that Full Speed being Full Speed, he would voice out loudly if he couldn’t see something well. Over time, I did notice when I picked him up during storytime he was always seated up front. I figured it was so he could see better and let it go at that.
Turns out he’s not placed in the front to see better, it’s so he doesn’t get ‘distracted’ way in the back. Apparently he needs to be right under the teacher’s nose when the class is gathered on the carpet. This is to help prevent some of Full Speed’s aforementioned charming antics.
Maybe I should worry less about his vision and focus more on behavior modification.
Everyone survived little T.Puzzle’s eye exam under anesthesia. These exams are difficult days for Mommy and son. First you start with the three sets of eye drops (three drops in both eyes each round) where I have to hold him down (thankfully Mad Dog was there to hold his legs) while he thrashes, screams and cries. This does nothing to ease my nervous anxiety about the impending exam.
Then, after waiting what seems like forever and not being able to give him any food or beverage, he is wheeled back into seeming oblivion with a random nurse you just meet and you have to pretend everything is okay. You head to the waiting area and you overhear words like ‘more surgery’ and ‘tumor placement’ as doctors and nurses describe what is happening to the other waiting parents’ children. For me, my psyche is an unfortunate sponge that soaks up the distress of others and my stomach tightens into an ever increasing intense knot as we wait for word of little T.Puzzle.
Mad Dog and I have sat through more than our share of these exams with both our boys only to hear not so great news ourselves; I almost can’t stand the waiting. When the doctor comes out after what seems like ages and shares with us the inevitable news that little T.Puzzle will have to have the eye surgeries to remove his lenses, it’s almost a sad relief. At least we know what we are up against.
As the doctor shows us pictures of his eyeballs and points to how he is only able to use a tiny window of space to see out of his left eye, my emotion can’t take it anymore and the tears start to spill from my own eyes. Logically, I know he is going to be fine but on an emotional motherly level, I just want my kid to have full use of his eye(s) and 20/20 vision. When the doctor leaves, I give myself a pep talk that at least she never used the word ‘tumor’ or anything else equally catastrophic. My boy is healthy and happy and that is all any mother has a right to hope for.
Little T.Puzzle’s displaced lense in his left eye. Note the small, clear space on the lower right-hand side of his iris. This is the tiny space he is using to see.Little T.Puzzle’s right eye with a slightly larger crescent of clear space that he can see through.
I turn to Mad Dog, take a deep breath and dig deep for calm and courage. Little T.Puzzle will shortly be coming out of anesthesia and he will need me to be strong and comforting. And, I am.
Of course once we return home, I bring him into my room and we nap for most of the afternoon because being brave is one of the most exhilarating and exhausting aspects of motherhood.
What do you do with your child the night before they have to be put under anesthesia?
Anything they want.
That is why I helped little T.Puzzle reassemble his train track that we had put away the night before. I had to painstakingly put all the little signs, houses and trees just where he wanted them. And you know what? I’d do it all again if it makes him happy.
