Halle-freakin'-lujah!!

Nathan is finished patching!  After two years and two months, he is finally finished!  He has been a real trooper through all this and I definitely see a celebration in his honor coming in our near future!

The doctor says that if he slips a little in the next three months he may have to patch a bit more, but for now he is stable and patch free.  And we all have our fingers crossed that his eye will stay stable.  So give Nathan a hug and a high five when you see him!  He is happy, happy, happy!

And The Number of the Day Is . . .

20/30.


20/30!!


In his weak eye!!!


With a new prescription, a little fasting and prayer, and a whole lot of faith, Nathan has experienced an enormous amount of improvement in the last five weeks. Five weeks ago we discovered that he had lost the little bit of progress he had shown at his previous eye appointment. We were told that there was nothing else to be done and to come back in five weeks so we could discuss whether or not it was worth it to even keep patching. At that point, his vision was not even good enough for him to be able to drive when he is older. We were all discouraged but Nathan, understanding way more than he should at age five, was terribly upset. So we had a family pow-wow and decided that we needed more help than the patching could give. Which gave us a really marvelous opportunity to teach our children about faith coupled with fasting and prayer. For all of our family members who joined us in this endeavor, you can see that the faith of many has indeed worked yet another mini-miracle in our lives. At the doctor's office today the staff had cheers and high fives and I had a few tears. Tonight we will celebrate, complete with prayers of thanksgiving.


20/30 is a beautiful number.

A Tidbit of Good News

Yesterday was Nathan's latest appointment with the eye doctor. He has been patching since September with no improvement, so we were desperately hoping for good news. The vision in his lazy eye has been 20/100 with his glasses on and yesterday he finally showed some improvement. His eye is starting to "wake up" (as Nathan describes it) and has vision of about 20/70. I was relieved beyond words and all the doctors and techs were very excited. I was a bit confused about why they were so happy (surely he is not the first lazy eye patient to start to get better) until I was told that if there had been no improvement, he was at the point where there was nothing else to be done and he would become one of the small percentage for whom treatment didn't work. I'm so grateful they didn't tell me that at our last appointment. From here we soldier on for two more months and then check back with the doctor to see where he is. Thankfully our prayers have been heard and at last he is headed in the right direction.

(Big sigh of relief)

Ahoy, Me Mateys!

Well, it's official. Nathan is a patch wearer. But the patches they use nowadays are a lot cooler than the pirate patch kids had to wear when I was a kid. The new ones are more like a big, very cool Bandaid. But there is one with pirate pictures on it.

Nathan has been really great about the whole glasses and patch business. In fact, before we knew for sure that he would need to be patched, he frequently asked us when he would get his patch. He was actually excited about the whole thing and I think Kev hit the nail on the head when he said that Nathan is super excited because he finally has a "thing." Daniel has the asthma and the dog allergy. Matthew has the asthma, the dog allergy, and the food allergies. Nathan has been our stand-alone healthy child and he has felt left out on more than one occasion. Yes, we all know that being healthy is better, but to a five year old all he sees is that both of his brothers get special attention. So he finally has something that neither of the others have and I think it makes him feel special.