Annual Eye Appointment 2014

Today we had Hunter's annual (for now) eye appointment with Dr. Piccione in Lafayette. He is one of the only pediatric eye doctor's in the area and Hunter has been seeing him since we got the Usher 1C diagnosis.
I probably didn't really even mention to anyone, except in passing, that he had this appointment. I don't think I really put much stock into anything going on at this age because the "typical" vision loss progression isn't supposed to set in for another few years. **PLUS- we will have some form of treatment before then, right?! :)**
Anyway, the nurse did a few tests with a computer screen in the distance and a few black and white pictures and he had to identify what they were. They were actually black lines that weren't connected, I wish I could find an example online but I can't. It was like 3 semi-circles with three vertical lines and the dots on top of the lines for the candles. I think I'm confusing myself trying to explain it but anyway. He then had to do it with one eye covered and match the picture on the screen to the same picture on a card he was holding. He probably got 95% of them correct.

Then they had him look at a few pictures like this to test for color blindness. There were shapes in the pictures and he nailed them all :) Here is an example of that one.
 

They dilated his eyes afterwards so we went look for a pair of solid black sunglasses next door while waiting to see the doctor. Well all he wanted to do was try on the glasses and say, "Look, I'm NANA!" Although I don't think she found it too comical, I sure did!

 



Then shortly after, we were called to the back and Dr. Piccione came to look at Hunter's eyes. He's a man of very few words, so I made sure to talk a lot to get my questions and concerns answered.
After looking in his eyes for a minute or so, he said that he was slightly near sighted, but not enough to require glasses. But I asked if that had anything to do with Usher Syndrome and he said no, just merely genetic. (Blair and I both wear contacts because we are near sighted, so that's probably inevitable for both of my boys. Blair started wearing glasses in the 4th grade.)

I also asked how many Usher patients he sees, and he said probably 10. Now that's pediatric patients, which is probably a good number because MOST children in this area who are born deaf do not know they could have Usher Syndrome until a later age when they start having vision issues. We had the genetic testing done due to family history, and that is why we got our diagnosis at such a young age.
Also, I asked if they took pictures of the eye because my eye doctor did just a month or so ago and we could see 3D images of the eye and I figured it would be a good thing to have. He said yes and they ended up taking a picture and will take another one a year from now to start comparing and looking for any visible changes.
The doctor did mention that he has very thin blood vessels, which is an indication of some type of RP. He said he normally wouldn't mention it unless there was family history of RP, but since we have it he said the cells are thinner than normal. But I guess that's par for the course. We are just so so grateful that at this point, things are looking good.
As the late Kidd Kraddick used to say, keep lookin up cause that's where it all is! :)

 

thanks for following-

elise