Ophthalmologist - yay!

In the past two years, there have only been a handful of times when I have been truly happy coming back from any of our many -ologist appointments. Typically we get some good news sandwiched in with bad news. But today's trip to the pediatric ophthalmologist was different!

In July, doctors at the Duke Eye Center diagnosed Will with Cortical Visual Impairment. He did alright, but not great, when presented with some toys and lights to visually track.

Well today, Will totally ROCKED the visual tracking tests. He did so well, in fact, that they brought in another technician to do the next round of vision tests. We didn't even get to round 2 in July.

So the tech brought out these white boards with black stripes on them to do a Teller Visual Acuity test, also known as a preferential looking test. Will did really well, and when they charted his progress, he was below "normal vision" (which was not a surprise), but the wonderful thing here is that HE MADE IT ONTO THE CHART! Way to go, Will!!

When the visual acuity testing was done, we saw the doctor. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw the progress that Will has made in the past 6 months. He was genuinely impressed, and even told me that he thought Will's CVI was "mild." He ALSO told me that because of the continual progress that Will has made with his vision, he expects that trend of improvement will continue steadily.

We go back again in 6 months, at which time they'll do the same visual acuity tests to determine if Will has made more progress, and will also test his actual vision again. A lot of children with CVI benefit from wearing glasses. Last time they checked Will's vision, he was slightly near-sighted (damn Baldauf-Loss genes! ha) but nothing that warranted corrective lenses. So we'll see what happens (no pun intended).

Hope you are having a good day. We Slaviks are floating on Cloud 9 with the exciting news about Will's vision, and the amazing amount of pride we have in him! And thanks to Kathy, Will's Governor Morehead pre-school teacher, for all the hard work. Your dedication and enthusiasm helped us get to this spot!