Maleah's Contacts.

When we discovered all of Maleah's eye business, he mentioned that in a year or so we should consider doing a contact.  Well, that year came quick, and here we are.

She is super young for a contact, yes.  Let me explain.  She only has one contact for her right eye.  Her eyes are so drastically different.  She doesn't have an eye stigmatism or anything like that.  Lasik would do nothing for her, as it is more so a brain thing than an eye thing, actually.  Because her eyes are so incredibly different, one from the other, her brain (even with her glasses) gets two different visual images.  This is confusing to the brain.  A contact helps that barrier.  Not only will she be able to see up, down, and out so much better, but her contact basically serves as a part of her eye.  He said it's basically a fake cornea.  Makes sense.

To have contacts (a contact in our case), you have to be responsible enough to deal with it.  But, he told me that if Maleah was his daughter, he would have her working on a contact like yesterday.  He was confident that it would improve her vision (especially peripheral), and way of life, greatly.

Maleah was so excited to try a contact out!  Sadly, and surprisingly, the morning of getting her contact, we had this conversation:

Maleah: "Mom, if I have a contact, does that mean my eye won't look so big anymore?"
Me: "We can ask the doctor, but I think you won't even be able to tell you have a contact in.  Are you worried about what your eyes look like?"
Maleah: "Well, kids tell me a lot that my right eye is so much bigger than my left eye."
Me: "I think your eyes are beautifully perfect.  God gave you one funny eye to deal with, so we are thankful for Dr. Jarod and your glasses.  But, He made you so pretty, your eyes and all."
Maleah: "Yep!"

I had no idea anyone had ever said anything to her.  While getting the contact was totally for medical reasons, this was the icing on the cake for me.  Off we went, at the ripe ol' age of six, to try the contact.

Ready to learn!

She was so willing to try.

Donna was so incredibly patient with her!  They sat there for TWO HOURS.  It took one and a half hours to put the contact in the first time, then half hour to get it out, then back in and back out.  I had the kids, so we sat and encouraged her for a while, then went to the waiting room while they worked it out.  I assured Maleah that if it wasn't going to work, we could try again in 6 months/year.  I had heard that no matter the age, learning to put them in is difficult.  The youngest they had ever dealt with teaching contact care was to junior high kids.  But, she was determined.  And, it paid off.

Maleah was squealing in delight at the things she could see with her contact in!  An airplane.  She had never seen one in the sky before.  She loved her contact so much she didn't want to take it out.  But, in order to give the eye time to adjust, we have to gradually wear it longer each day.  She is now wearing it full time.

Her set up at home.

I'm not going to lie.  It is a really frustrating way to start the day.  Putting it in is hard and time consuming (we have to allow a loooot of time).  It takes a lot of tries and a lot of encouragement.  BUT, she has such a great attitude!  Probably better than mine.  Taking it out is going so well.  She can do it without even looking already!  She has done a fantastic job of learning.  She has a little bit of a thicker contact right now to learn on, so my next prayer is that our transition to her "dailies," which are flimsier, goes smooth.

We went back to the eye doctor today to get it checked, and her vision was better than it was with glasses.  Yay!  We celebrated with ice cream.

It took us a while to get used to her with glasses, and now it's taking some time to get used to her without.  I am so, so, so very proud of her.  Her courage and persistence has pleasantly surprised me.  She's done a good job, and I am very proud of my girl.