A Prosthetic Eye

On Tuesday, Brian, Grace & I headed to the Denver Optic Company to get Grace a prosthetic eye.  This prosthetic eye is to serve two purposes - one, so that her eyes match and two, so that her head/eye sockets will continue to grow at the same rate. Because of Grace's persistent fetal vascular syndrome in her right eye, her eye does not grow and at this point doctors have determined she can see a little light out of it and that is about it. Since her eye is "broken" (tiny, easy words for a 3 year old to understand), her eye doctor felt it was time to try and get an eye prosthetic. 

We had been prepping Grace for this appointment for about 10 days. Our initial appointment was the week before, but due to a predicted blizzard (that turned out to be two inches of snow), the appointment got rescheduled to this week. Grace seemed very excited for her painted eye and was all ready - until we got there. I think the anticipation of it and not knowing what to expect even though we role played it with her doll was too much. 

If you go to the Denver Optic Company website, you can see a short video of the process. Video of Procedure

Grace let the Ocularist, Walter, do a few tests to see if she could tolerate the eye shell and when it came to place a shell in to see how she did, she was done. She didn't get super upset, but it was clear she was not going to sit still and let Walter place it in her eye to sit for a few minutes. After some talking and bribing, she was still not having it. 

Walter felt at that almost 4, it was not good idea to force her to do it and I agree. Grace is a strong willed child and I knew she was be super upset if we did force her into anything. We agreed that for now we would wait. Walter will speak with Grace's eye doctor to see if this shell is absolutely necessary right now. If it is, then that means putting Grace under anesthesia to get everything done. If it is not necessary, then we will wait until Grace is old enough to realize how different her eye looks and asks to get the shell. 

Grace was very happy when she realized we got to leave. However, her biggest was concern is if she got her reward of going to Old McDonald's (that is what she calls McDonald's) for lunch. Because she was brave for much of the time we took her there and let her play. 

In the afternoon we spent some good quality time with her which was good since she rarely gets alone time with mom and dad anymore since Jack was born. 

Grace doesn't seem upset or care that she didn't her painted eye yet. She has yet to mention it. We will try another day I am sure in the years to come.