The eyes have it!

I've got a monster of a post that I've been adding and adding and adding to since last week, and I'm not sure whether I'm just going to break it up into a bunch of smaller posts or heave it all out there into the blogosphere in one, gigantic post at some point.

In the meantime, I have some news to report. Went to my new eye doctor (side note: I've been going to the eye doctor for over thirty years now ((side side note: dang, but that makes me sound ooooold)) and this is the first time in my life that I've ever had a female eye doctor. Isn't that odd?) this morning for a check-up. Longer-time readers of my blog might recall I've had some eye-related issues in the past, that led me back to becoming a primarily-eyeglasses-wearing kind of chick after twenty solid years of being a primarily-contact-lens-wearing chick. It's been over a year and a half now since I reverted back to Heather Four Eyes, and I've mostly gotten used to it. A minor inconvenience, really, that is a pain mostly when having to do that Mr. Rogers-esque switch from regular specs to sunglasses (prescription, thick as heck, and *enormous* in my case - very Hollywood Celebutante-ish, oooh la la. Um, except for the "thick as heck" bit) whenever I'm going in or out of doors, and, of course, when I'm trying to perform various depilatory acts while showering.

Well.

My new, fantabulous Eye Doctor Chick not only confirmed that while yes, my ocular allergies have returned, no, I do not in fact have any recurrence of last year's Major Eye Ick, but she also had a new, better prescription to replace the "eh, I guess it works better than plain old Visine, I guess" eye drops I've used in the past (and gave me a sample bottle to get me started, too), but best of all she told me about a brand-spankin'-new type of contact lens that *might* just be my ticket back to Four Eyed Freedom! This lens is made of silicone instead of whatever kind of plastic or Saran wrap or whatever it was my lenses have always been made of up until this point, and that means that they are much more conducive to eyeballs with my kind of ridiculous protein output. (Yes, my eyes have a veritable superpower when it comes to protein production. Woo.) Even better, these fancy-pants silicone lenses are way the HECK cheaper than the daily disposable ones I'd been told were the only ones I could possibly ever wear last year by my old eye doctor. Like, a quarter of the price cheaper. She promptly produced a sample pair that I'm going to wear for the next two weeks (well, once my pupils return to normal from their Heather Looks Ever-So-Slightly More Insane Than Usual, Totally Black from Massive Pupil Dilation state) and if all goes well, I'm in business. Wooooooo-hooooooooooo!

I must pause here for a quick Happy Dance, done to Jamie Foxx's ubiquitous tune Blame It, which has been stuck in my head for the past 24 hours thanks to my five-minute-long flipping sessions through the music channels on TV each morning (part of my vain and desperate attempt to stay "current" but I always wind up watching the comfortable, familiar videos I recall from my youth on VH1 Classic and hoping that they'll play a little Duran Duran before Hubby is done in the bathroom and I must get up and on with my day...) coupled with the fact that I fully blame my night of horrid gastrointestinal distress plus feverishly bizarre dreams last night on a bad glass of OJ I chugged as I made dinner last night............

Okay, I really, really, REALLY need to get some curtains or shades for this office. Stat. And if someone could please explain to me the point of that video, besides Jamie showing off his cool, famous friends (Ron Howard? Really? Richie Freaking Cunningham? Does he have street cred now? I always thought Fonzie



was the cool one.......) that would be great. I mean, I *get* which are the cool guys in the Duran Duran videos. (Hello, John Taylor...) I just don't get today's videos and music. Is T-Pain in every video right now? Is there a rule that you can't just do a song - it has to "feature" someone who may or may not actually have more of a part in the song than the "main" artist? And what the freak is up with Lady Gaga? She scares me. Yeesh.

Annnnnyhow, the news that I might be returned to my previous state of contact lens bliss isn't even the best news to come out of my visit to the eye doctor today. You see, we were chatting during my exam (I know: Me? Chatting? No way!) and somehow got around to the topic of kids (again, I know: Me? Talk about kids? No way!) and the fact that Kiddo has intermittent exotropia came up. I honestly don't remember exactly how that came up, really - I remember we were talking about going to Disney World (her family's going for the first time later this summer) and next thing I know, it had worked its way into the conversation. I do remember mentioning how much I'm worried about and dreading the very real possibility that Kiddo might be needing eye surgery later this summer, as I don't think the current regime of patching is doing diddly or squat.

It was at this point that she filled me in on some new information (well, new to me, anyhow) both about the surgery typically done for Kiddo's eye condition and about vision therapy.

Oooh, did you hear that? The chorus of angels that sang out when I typed the words "vision therapy" just then?

See, there they go again!

Yes, my friends, it turns out that there is a course of vision therapy that, according to Fantabulous Eye Doctor Chick, can cure Kiddo's eye condition without any surgery. And she's not just a doctor, but the wife of someone who had the exact surgery Kiddo would be facing when he was a young child. (Surgery, I might add, that left him with zero depth perception. Which is a typical result of the surgery. Yikes.) Anyhow, she knows of another doctor who does such vision therapy, and while I was out in the optician's area waiting for my pupils to explode and trying on eleventy squillion frames and cracking the optician up with my commentary (sample hilarious joke: "Yes, but do these frames make me look 50 pounds thinner?" Seriously, she was a way easy audience. There might've been a two drink minimum going on sometime earlier in her morning. I mean, it's always five o'clock somewhere, even when it's just 10am in my corner of the world...) the Super Awesome and Most Fantabulous Eye Doctor made a phone call to the Vision Therapy Doc and spoke to her about Kiddo, so that when I went owlishly blinking my way back into the exam room, she had all this info including contact info for the doctor nicely written down for me.

Seriously, I will try *anything* that doesn't involve cutting into my kid's eyeballs. Let me repeat that: Cutting. Into. My. Kid's. Eyeballs. Nope, doesn't get any better no matter how much I say, think or type it. So, I giddily left rambling voicemail messages on Hubby's Crackberry and office line (I know: Me? Rambling? NO WAY!) as I squinted my way home behind my Really, They Are Trendy Magoo Sunglasses and left a voicemail for the vision therapy eye doctor as soon as I got home. (Then Hubby called back, and despite being quick to inform me he had listened to BOTH of my messages in their entirety, I repeated the entire thing to him again, because I was just that excited and because I could only type him an email by closing my eyes and that was annoying as heck.)

So, tomorrow morning (assuming my pupils have returned to normal and I can look at the screen again without squinting) I have to call the insurance company to see what, if any, of this doctor's services might be covered. I know that although it would seem like a no-brainer to cover something other than surgery and hospitalization, when have insurance companies ever been accused of having a brain? So, I'll find out how impossible it will be to get coverage on that end of things and also call the vision therapy eye doctor's office back again ('cause, surprise surprise: I left a kind of rambly message on her voicemail, too, and I'm not sure but I may've been cut off before I actually left my name and number) and see what I can do about getting Kiddo evaluated there.

Since her vision issues play a role in some of her OT issues, I'm thinking I may be able to work that angle and possibly get the support of her most recent therapist if need be, too. I will gladly work any angle necessary to get Kiddo any treatment that (a) might work well and (b) doesn't involve scalpels and eyeballs.

So, there you have it. Good news for both of the brown eyed girls in the Smith fam. I shall now return to shaking my shuwumple in a happy dance and bid you all good night.

Blame it on the Minute Maid,
Blame it on the Tropicana,
Blame it on the Sunny-D,
Blame it on the organic, blame it on the generic...
Blame it on the O-O-O-O-O-O-OJ
Blame it on the O-O-O-O-O-O-OJ.........