jasper eye update

its been some time since i've given an official progress report of jasper's eye on the blog. we talk with so many nearby friends and family that i forgot how many we communicate sometimes through this.

in many ways, its been tough to write about since the contact lens has been stressful and loads of work. it's always easier to write about the good times.

as i mentioned, the contact lens has been quite tough for us. it's been about a month since we began placing it in his eye each morning and taking out each night. he still fights like a champ, but we are slowly getting faster at placing it in and removing it.

the most important part has been the least successful: patching. with the lens in, we have to patch the good eye, forcing him to use and consequently rehab the bad eye. we are supposed to do this 6 hours every day. the unfortunately part about this is that he wants absolutely nothing to do with the patch. he rips them off within milli-seconds, rips them off of our eyes (when we try to show him how cool it is to wear a patch), and rips them off all his elmo dolls (when we show him how cool elmo is when he wears a patch). the doctors gave us a few weeks to try and then gave us 2 options: 1. place a pitch black contact lens in the good eye, essentially doing what a patch would do without the ability to rip it off -or- 2. give up.

2 weeks ago we went to the doctor to have his good eye measured for the black contact. last week, the black lens arrived in the mail. we waited to try it out for the first time till today where we could devote the whole morning if necessary to work with him.

i strongly believe we had help from a higher power. when we put the corrective lens in, we got it in on the first try. instead of the normal 15-20 minutes....it took less than a minute. we gave him a few minutes and then strapped him down again for the black lens. once more, we got it in, this time on the third try.

as expected, he freaked out initially. however, within a few moments, he was up on his feet and wanting to play ball with me. and, most important, he could see. he still hit walls, ran into corners, and tripped over things, he could see enough to calm down and actually run back and forth from mara + i...something that he couldn't stop doing.

15 minutes after the black lens was in, he was laughing and throwing the ball. every 15 minutes or so, he would stop and lay his head down with his eyes closed to rest (pictured above). he hasn't really used the right eye for the last 8 months, so we are sure it tires easily. we left it on for over an hour and took it out pretty easy. we are uncertain how much he can see with the black lens out of each eye. we wont know until he can clearly talk and let us know. but what is certain is that he could function with nearly all sight removed from his good eye.

it was truly a blessed day.

some other good news to report: while i was in OH, mara took jasper to see the retina specialist, Dr. Lee, who said his retina looks so good, he has graduated him so that the only reason we would need to see him again soon is if the cornea doc thinks its nessarily in the future. the retina has remained attached and healthy looking.

we saw the cornea specialist, Dr. Song, on Thursday of last week. he said jasper cornea looks absolutely great and mentioned that it's cleared up even better than he expected. he said he is confident he can see with the lens in his eye. he told us this before this morning, which in no uncertain terms, proves it.