The Daily Hailey

Dekker had his eye surgery about a year and a half ago. I shouldn’t need to give a recap, because those images are burned in my mind, but in case they aren’t burned in yours the same way, here’s about how surgery day looked:

Over the last 1.5 years, Dekker has gone through all of the emotions when it comes to his eye doctor. He used to tremble when we entered the hospital. Then it was ok to the at the hospital, but he’d fight the testing hard. He’d scream and struggle to leave the exam room. I’m pretty sure we had never tried to bribe him before all of that began. In the last few appointments, he’s complied better. He’s still put up a pretty sizeable fuss for the first five minutes of his appointments, but then he does his thing and cooperates for the most part.

Today was a whole new spectrum. I told him in the morning that we were going to see Dr. Rubab and he responded “Ummm, actually, I can see really fine.” I told him its just good to check and make sure he is seeing the best he can. He accepted that and was anticipating the outing. When we got there, he came to the desk to check in with me, and didn’t cower when the receptionist spoke to him. He even let her put his hospital bracelet on for the first time! We’ve always had to do it, and even then, we’ve had to put it on his ankle because he was fighting so hard. This was much smoother. We were pretty early, but we actually got called into orthoptics early, which was awesome! The man called Dekker by name and for the first time ever, Dekker didn’t panic. He asked to sit with Brady, and then he seemed comfortable. He even let the orthoptist patch over each eye individually, and take his glasses off. Both of those things caused HUGE fits of screaming and fear in the past.

The one little detail that Dekker did not cooperate on was all of the testing. My gosh, it was SO frustrating!! I loved seeing him so comfortable and positive, but his jokes are always just him giving the wrong answer, and that isn’t really ideal at the doctor. I kept reminding myself that these people work with kids, and my kid being happy and funny, even though its not great, isn’t the end of the world. Also, Dekker is likely not the first kid who has pulled this kind of stunt. So I apologized, and he worked around Dekker’s antics, and managed to get basic information.

After his initial testing in orthoptics, I had a chat with him about how jokes are great, but not really a good idea at the doctors office. I told him that, if the doctor didn’t know he was making jokes, she might think he was sick! He seemed receptive, so we recapped the rules a little bit and then played while we waited.

When we did get in with Dr. Rubab, Dekker pulled the same stunt. I tried to remind him a few times that it wasn’t a good time for jokes, and he needed to just say the right answer. And he just WOULDN’T!! Thankfully, Dr Rubab had lots of different activities to try and get the information from him. Dekker was still fighting the power a bit, and I could tell Dr Rubab’s mind was ticking. She finally said “You don’t really want to do this today, do you? We can just do drops if thats easier for you, but I don’t really want to do drops today…” and then she trailed off a bit and pulled out some more things for him to look at. Things went faster after that! Once all his tests were done, she offered him a sticker, and he sort of turned his nose up at them. She offered him all of the different kinds she had, and we actually shared a laugh about her not knowing about kids characters anymore, since her kids are teens. It felt normal, which I love.

So our update on Dekker is as follows. He is using both eyes together, so he is no longer favoring one eye. Also, it appears that his vision is the same in both eyes. They couldn’t get a very accurate reading on how his vision actually is, because he wouldn’t answer the questions properly, but he had his prescription updated just a few months back, so she wasn’t too worried. Also, the big win is that Dekker’s eyes have no crossing, whether his glasses are on or off.

I’m happy that he’s in the shape he’s in today.

See you in eight months, Dr Rubab!!