Katie's eyes....

3 months and 2 weeks later. It seems longer since we took Katie and found out the poor girl hadn't been able to see for 5 YEARS! Well.....I was a little more stable today than the first time, and able to understand a little better what all was going on, but on with the good news: Katie's eyes are IMPROVING at a DRASTICALLY FAST RATE!!!!!!!!!!

PRAISE GOD!!!!!

She is improving very very quickly according to the doctor. Katie's vision without glasses is 20/400! (I know they both aren't the same, this is in one of her eyes, the good or bad one I can't remember). With her glasses, the best they could get for her before was 20/60, and today she was up to 20/40! Up "four lines" on the chart according to Dr. Jabaley! She was amazed. She said that usually it takes a couple of years to get the eyes to improve with a case like Katie, but she says that by December (a year) that she thinks Katie will be improved to 20/20 with her glasses!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!! What awesome news!!

I don't think I really realized when we went before that Katie's glasses weren't totally fixing her eyesight, only improving them as much as they could. I don't think I was told either or didn't remember the 20/400 number. But, you know, there are a lot of people out there who are "blind" without their glasses (me being one of them), so I am just excited that there is such awesome improvement and that the hope of 20/20 is in sight!

Katie has started reading more fluently (less stopping, quicker recognition, and no pointing while reading). She has also been running without stopping, and just "doing things" more easily. Things like moving a game piece around a game board, coloring, writing, etc. Now I know we have had practice with school, but I know her glasses are helping her as well....a LOT! She is "braver" about going down slides at the playground, and wants to go higher on the swings. She is loving ballet and I am so happy that she got her glasses before she started the classes. Often throughout the day I will ask where Katie is and Noah will reply: "She's in her room reading a book." She loves to read and now just reads on her own all the time.

I am so thrilled today! We are supposed to go back every three months to check her progress and I am excited, so thrilled to see how the three months improves again! Maybe, just maybe she will be at 20/20 in one of her eyes!

We didn't have to pay anything for today (of course now that we have insurance :) so afterward we went to Wal-mart and both Katie and Noah picked out a prize....this morning they were WONDERFUL while they waited for me to get a haircut, and then Noah was so good during Katie's eye exam and Katie didn't have a meltdown during the eye exam like she did last time. Well, they didn't do the spray dilate thing like they did last time since her eyes were used to not over compensating now, but still, the lady tried to do that eye puff thing they do at exams and Katie didn't even cry when they did it. I can't even stand to do that air puff in my eye. (She didn't have to even have that done, another lady came up and said she didn't need to do that since Katie was less than 9 years old). Anyway, they both got a prize....besides being so good this morning (after a very late bedtime after church last night and an early morning to get to my hair appt) they are just GREAT CHILDREN and we are INCREDIBLY blessed to have them in our lives!
Noah picked out a Nerf rocket football, and Katie picked out a FurReal Pet, a baby duck that you feed a bottle. They have had a blast playing with them. I just love my Katie and Noah!