Patching

Grace's 'patch' work

Grace has a 'lazy eye'. It's not a turned eye, or a squint, it's an eye with a significant astigmatism. Because only one eye has the astigmatism, the brain makes sense of the very different images it is receiving from each eye by effectively ignoring the images from the astigmatic eye, thus rendering it 'lazy'. It is pretty common, but also reasonably rare for kids to notice it themselves. Grace figured it out because she is so keen to learn how to wink and everything went blurry when she closed her left eye. Patching involves covering the 'good' eye for two hours each day and forcing the brain to make sense of the images it is receiving from the other. It is frustrating for her looking at a blurry world. We are meant to do things that require her to work her eye, like drawings and jigsaw puzzles. Sewing is good too.  She embroidered this flower and made the cushion with her dad and me over the weekend.

It's quite difficult to find two hours a day to focus with her on tasks and cajole her into keeping the patch on.  We've only managed an hour and a quarter so far before she can't handle it anymore and we cave.  I've enlisted the older girls to help by blatantly bribing them.  We'll see how it all goes.