My second daughter wears glasses. She was diagnosed with astigmatism just before the end of her reception year in school. It was picked up through a routine school nurse check that happened at the beginning of the year. I have no idea why it took the best part of a year to find out but then there’s nothing like the slow turning wheels of the NHS. 😉
Anyhow she had to be referred for tests at the local children hospital and I obviously went with her this time, whereas the school checks had been done without either me or her dad present. The initial test, reading the shapes, with both her eyes uncovered she rocked it..all the way down to the little house, square and circle..even i struggled to make them out.
Then the nurse covered what we now know as her unaffected eye and i watched her struggle with the first couple of lines and then give up. I felt gutted for her, gutted that she couldn’t see, gutted that we hadn’t noticed and gutted what this meant for her in the future.
I remember spluttering my excuses out to the nurse, ‘we have never noticed anything!’ “she doesn’t ever do anything that would make you think she can’t see!’ To which, the nurse, probably well used to this sort of pleading parental guilt coming her way just smiled at me and said ‘ wait and see what the Doctor says’
It turned out that her vision in one eye is so good that she was totally over-compensating with that eye and so that is why we had noticed nothing. *phew* 😉
She now wears glasses all the time and she has been incredible about wearing them, which given the sort of um…..independent character she has….is pretty remarkable that she has toed the line. But her eyes, with her glasses on, now have the same ability and she can read all the way down to the tiniest symbols with both eyes.
Her older sister was pretty jealous of her glasses and wanted to see if she needed them too…she even has a pair of fashion ones and i think, still yearns after the pretty glasses her sister has. We even had quite a lot of pouting and ‘its NOT FAIR!” type comments from her when her sister first got the glasses. Last week on half term we were talking about my niece who doesn’t need glasses but is wearing fashion ones all the time and my daughter who doesn’t wear glasses was nodding in agreement with how lovely they are and pretty and trendy…etc etc..
So I asked my daughter who wears glasses ‘do you think wearing glasses is fun?’
she thought for a while and said ‘No because i have to be careful and not break them and i loose them all the time and people can hurt me if they bump into me!’
Funny how just a little different perspective can change your attitude…
isnt it?
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