Friday, February 03, 2006

Return of the One-Eyed Cretin (oh, now, that's just plain evil)

We took Darwin to the Opthamologist yesterday for a four-month check-up from his eye accident ("All the Drama").


Darwin, October 7th, 2005; ten days after his accident.

The doctor was amazed at how much movement he has regained in his left eye and eye lid. She thought he could keep healing, but it is possible that at some point it will regress a little, but not to how he was immediately after the accident.


Darwin, January 24th, 2006

Darwin does respond negatively to bright light in his left eye, so the doctor looked through his retinas to see his optical nerves. The scale the color of the nerve from one (best) to four (worst). Darwin's right eye is a one, completely healthy; his left eye is a "four plus," its the lightest color nerve she has ever seen. His left optical nerve is severly damaged, and he is blind in his left eye.
Due to being blind in that eye, other parts of the eye might degenerate due to no longer being needed; but this is not something you can see physically.

Due to now having only one functioning eye, we have to get Darwin safety glasses. She gave us a prescription, and hopefully insurance will cover all or most of the cost. He will wear them at all times (in the tub, swimming, etc.), for the rest of his life. We may also need to get him safety sunglasses, due to the fact that his left eye is sensitive to bright light.

The doctor also mentioned that for her whole career and future career, this will be the biggest freak accident she ever saw. Gee, thanks.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is some serious cute going on with that boy. I'd always heard that over time our amazing brains could kinda compensate if one eye didn't work, but i guess that's not right. would the saftey glasses have any prescription, or would they be protective?

laura capello said...

The glasses will just be protective; and theoridically his vision in his right eye should be very good because of this.

Marshamlow said...

When I was nine years old, my older brother and I were in the backyard with a fishing pole practicing casting. We were going fishing the next day and neither of us could cast worth a damn. On the line was a weight but no hook. The weight became entangled in the grass and we yanked it out. The weight flew through the air and hit me directly in the right eye.

I was rushed to the hopital where I remained for many months. They drugged me to the point that my eye wouldn't have rappid eye movement when I slept. This done to help my eye heal. I developed a cataract and it was removed. This was more than 25 years ago. During the surgery my eye was damaged so that the pupil quit working, it remained in a permanent completely open state. They tried to correct the right eye with a contact lens, and then my other "good" eye needed to be corrected. So I wore two lenses.

When I wear glasses they make me get the really expensive protective lenses, and let me tell you they scratch up really easily. Mostly I go with god in hopes that nothing will happen to my good eye, however they say that my bad eye could most probably be corrected with surgery, but that the two eyes would never be able to work together. So I have one lazy eye, which they might be able to fix cosmetically? I am not sure. And my lazy eye is a different color and the pupil is always all the way open.

So this one-eyed cretin says hello to yours. It isn't so bad. At first I would misjudge the center of my body and run into doors and walls. I have a bit of trouble catching a ball that is coming toward me but I think those things go away with time. There is currently a rapid increase in the science of eyes and so there is a ton of hope for the future. I hope that your insurance is kind to you. I just wanted to say that there is at least on other freaky eye incident in the world.