Patch, Surgery, etc....

Today is day 2 of Jack’s eye patch. Day 1 went better than expected. We put it on him right at 6am when we woke him up for the day so he was still groggy and he really didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t start to fight the patch for about 30 minutes. It lasted 1 ½ hrs, so we will take it. Today was the same situation, 6am and he was too groggy to fight it. He realized it was on there about 30 minutes later, but didn’t really fuss too much. I ended up taking it off at 1 hr, 40 minutes because he fell asleep. Tomorrow maybe we can do 1 hr 50 minutes?!? The patches do not stick very well around the nose, and it is tough to make sure that light is not peeking in. We are constantly messing with it to make sure it is as effective as possible.

To clarify my post on the eye surgery, both eyes will be done at the same time. Apparently, there are 6 muscles in each eye that control eye movement. One muscle moves the eye to the right, one moves it to the left, and 4 move it up or down and at an angle. Jack will have 2 of these muscles on each eye “relaxed”. His muscles are not balanced and working together at this point. The surgery is on Dec 22nd, with a pre-op appt on the 21st and a post op appt on Jan 5th.

We are looking forward to the surgery being completed for several reasons. First and foremost for attachment. Jack makes below average eye contact at this point, but it is nearly impossible to determine what he is looking at. Sometimes I think he is looking at me, but then realize he is just zoning out and looking out into space. Eye contact is an important aspect of bonding and we feel the surgery will at least help us determine if we are making improvements in this area. Another reason is due to his constant falling. All toddlers fall, but since Jackson sees double, he falls ALL the time. I have no idea how his head isn’t always black and blue. We are concerned he is going to get a head injury. Eventually, the brain will just shut off his other eye if he isn’t treated for the Strabismus, which will affect a variety of things, including learning.

As far as attachment goes, we are doing okay overall. We have kept him in the house with both parents for the most part for the last month. We have gone out just a handful of times. When we were at the eye appointment, Jack walked right up to a man and grabbed him. Of course, this isn’t good for attachment reasons, but to make matters worse – this particular man was very angry and had been pestering the staff for the entire time we had been there. Jack not only went to a stranger, he went to an angry stranger. At first, he did stay with us, but continued to get further and further away from us with very little hesitation. Bill would get up from the chair and separate him from the others, but Jack still wanted to go over to where the other adults were (and have nothing to do with us). Needless to say, we have a lot of work to do. We don’t expect him to become attached to us overnight, but we do want to keep a close eye on this and other types of behaviors and need to make sure that he doesn’t continue indiscriminate friendliness.

Here is a short video of Jackson trying out his new scooter! He loves it!