Our Blue-Eyed Boy

Dr. Stathacopoulos is Luke's pediatric opthomologist in SLO. She has been tracking Luke since June and is the primary decision maker for all things having to do with his vision. She is an excellent doctor and we are very fortunate to have a pediatric opthomologist in town (let alone one of her caliber) or we would have yet another reason to head bi-montly back up to Stanford. She was the one that regretfully informed me that Luke was essentially blind as well as who jubilantly declared him not to be!

Luke went in to see Dr. S. today for a regular follow-up. She was excited that Luke continues to show improvement and assured me that his vision is here to stay and will, hopefully, only get stronger. Her primary concern this time around is Luke's eyes' tendency to cross. If at times the right focus and the left crosses and vice versa, then nothing needs to be done immediately. However, if we (Matt and I) find that one eye is consistently turning in and not the other, then we have to move forward to correct it. If he relies on the left one, for example, and turns the right one in all the time then the right eye will actually become less effective. His brain will wire itself to permanently depend on the that left eye only. This is corrected by patching the dominent eye thus forcing the "crossed" eye to take control. The human brain never ceases to amaze...

Dr. S. saw both eyes each crossing and focusing while in her office and Matt and I, in the few hours since, have seen this as well. Our homework is still to watch him just to be sure. The picture below was taken as we left her office today. Notice the left eye "crossed" in.

And here's one that I took last week. Here the right eye is turned in.Due to the eyes crossing, it sounds like eye muscle surgery will be in Luke's future. It's a rather common surgery and even one that his Grandma Chrissy went through when she was cross-eyed as a young girl. Dr. S. didn't give any time frame for when this may be but I'm guessing not until he's bigger, stronger and his eyesite has somewhat stabilized.

As for the other odd things he does with his eyes (namely the looking down and to the sides,) the reasons are still unknown. Whether it is because of his eye muscles and the lack of control or because it's something his brain tells him to do because his field of vision is not "normal," we just have to wait until either Luke is old enough to be tested or he can verbally guide Dr. S. Regardless, Luke CAN SEE and continues to charm, entertain and amaze all he meets!