Ophthalmologist visit.
Sep. 5th, 2007 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaWe took Alex to the ophthalmologist this morning. She's being checked annually for strabismus, because I had surgery for it as a child, and Michael probably needed surgery for it but didn't get it. This time last year, we had a pretty stressful trip to the opthalmologist - as I recall, she fussed the whole time, and was pretty much hysterical all through the dilated eye exam. Today's visit went much better.
We did a little preparation beforehand. Several times over the past few weeks, I told her that soon we would be going to the eye doctor and rehearsed what the eye doctor would do. This morning, I got out her toy otoscope and a flashlight and gave an eye exam to a teddy bear and then to Alex, and then Alex gave me one. That got her very excited about the whole trip, and she went to the exam room eagerly.
In my job before grad school, I gave vision tests to infant monkeys. So I knew that it was possible, if not easy, to test the visual acuity of someone who can't read an eye chart. I was interested to see how they tested Alex.
First the tester showed her a sheet of paper with some stylized pictures that had a stenciled look. She asked Alex to name each picture. Then she projected the pictures on a screen and had Alex continue to identify them as the sizes got progressively smaller. She had been uncertain about naming a couple of the pictures initially (the images were kind of weird), and so when she said "I don't know" about one of those images the tester switched to another image of the same size instead of assuming that it was a visual acuity problem. Alex thought this was a really fun game.
Next she asked Alex to try on a pair of toddler-sized sunglasses which I guess had polarizing lenses. She showed her a group of cartoon drawings of animals and started to ask her "which one looks funny" - but she didn't need to, because Alex immediately tried to pick one of the drawings up. Apparently, this was a test of stereo vision. One cartoon animal looks 3-D when viewed through polarizing lenses... but only if you have working stereo vision. (Michael tried on the glasses later and couldn't see the 3-D at all.) I thought it was really cool that the test makes use of a toddler's natural tendency to explore, rather than requiring the ability to answer questions or follow directions. I think any young child would probably want to touch and handle a 3-D picture; following a stranger's directions is a much more chancy enterprise.
Finally, she put another pair of sunglasses on Alex. This one had a red lens and a green lens. She turned on a little device with colored lights (red, green, and white) and asked her to show her Mama where each light was.
The actual ophthalmologist's exam was much more boring. She basically just wanted Alex to look at various toys, close up and far away, while she covered one eye or the other, or shined a light in one eye or the other. Alex did cry when the eyedrops went in - there were only a couple of seconds between the supposedly numbing eyedrops and the painful dilating eyedrops, which didn't seem to be enough time. But after her eyes dilated she went willingly back to the exam room to see the doctor again. She marched right up to the exam chair and announced, "I want to sit in the chair by self." (The previous exam was done while she sat on my lap.) And she did, too. She sat quietly in the chair and kept her hands away from her eyes and followed all the doctor's directions. I was proud and amazed.
Interestingly enough, when we came home she said she was tired and insisted on being put to bed for a nap. That almost never happens! I think that cooperating with such a new experience was a bigger strain than it appeared.
The upshot of it all: Alex's eyes are perfectly fine. So fine that we can skip next year's exam and just follow up again when she's four. Yay.
I did notice one thing today. Alex decided that she wanted to wear a dress, so I put her in a pretty but practical plaid cotton sundress. All through our trip to the opthalmologist, she got much, much more of a particular kind of attention than usual: syrupy, fawning comments from the office staff and from strangers in the elevator about "Aren't you beauuuutiful. You look sooooo pretty in that dress, but I bet you aaaallllways look beautiful."
It seems as though just putting her in a dress instead of shorts - and it's not that fancy a dress - is enough to trigger a huge explosion of hyperfeminine assumptions. I hated it. Alex seemed embarrassed by it, but also pleased. I swear it's almost enough to make me want to permanently dress her in shapeless gender-neutral coveralls.
We did a little preparation beforehand. Several times over the past few weeks, I told her that soon we would be going to the eye doctor and rehearsed what the eye doctor would do. This morning, I got out her toy otoscope and a flashlight and gave an eye exam to a teddy bear and then to Alex, and then Alex gave me one. That got her very excited about the whole trip, and she went to the exam room eagerly.
In my job before grad school, I gave vision tests to infant monkeys. So I knew that it was possible, if not easy, to test the visual acuity of someone who can't read an eye chart. I was interested to see how they tested Alex.
First the tester showed her a sheet of paper with some stylized pictures that had a stenciled look. She asked Alex to name each picture. Then she projected the pictures on a screen and had Alex continue to identify them as the sizes got progressively smaller. She had been uncertain about naming a couple of the pictures initially (the images were kind of weird), and so when she said "I don't know" about one of those images the tester switched to another image of the same size instead of assuming that it was a visual acuity problem. Alex thought this was a really fun game.
Next she asked Alex to try on a pair of toddler-sized sunglasses which I guess had polarizing lenses. She showed her a group of cartoon drawings of animals and started to ask her "which one looks funny" - but she didn't need to, because Alex immediately tried to pick one of the drawings up. Apparently, this was a test of stereo vision. One cartoon animal looks 3-D when viewed through polarizing lenses... but only if you have working stereo vision. (Michael tried on the glasses later and couldn't see the 3-D at all.) I thought it was really cool that the test makes use of a toddler's natural tendency to explore, rather than requiring the ability to answer questions or follow directions. I think any young child would probably want to touch and handle a 3-D picture; following a stranger's directions is a much more chancy enterprise.
Finally, she put another pair of sunglasses on Alex. This one had a red lens and a green lens. She turned on a little device with colored lights (red, green, and white) and asked her to show her Mama where each light was.
The actual ophthalmologist's exam was much more boring. She basically just wanted Alex to look at various toys, close up and far away, while she covered one eye or the other, or shined a light in one eye or the other. Alex did cry when the eyedrops went in - there were only a couple of seconds between the supposedly numbing eyedrops and the painful dilating eyedrops, which didn't seem to be enough time. But after her eyes dilated she went willingly back to the exam room to see the doctor again. She marched right up to the exam chair and announced, "I want to sit in the chair by self." (The previous exam was done while she sat on my lap.) And she did, too. She sat quietly in the chair and kept her hands away from her eyes and followed all the doctor's directions. I was proud and amazed.
Interestingly enough, when we came home she said she was tired and insisted on being put to bed for a nap. That almost never happens! I think that cooperating with such a new experience was a bigger strain than it appeared.
The upshot of it all: Alex's eyes are perfectly fine. So fine that we can skip next year's exam and just follow up again when she's four. Yay.
I did notice one thing today. Alex decided that she wanted to wear a dress, so I put her in a pretty but practical plaid cotton sundress. All through our trip to the opthalmologist, she got much, much more of a particular kind of attention than usual: syrupy, fawning comments from the office staff and from strangers in the elevator about "Aren't you beauuuutiful. You look sooooo pretty in that dress, but I bet you aaaallllways look beautiful."
It seems as though just putting her in a dress instead of shorts - and it's not that fancy a dress - is enough to trigger a huge explosion of hyperfeminine assumptions. I hated it. Alex seemed embarrassed by it, but also pleased. I swear it's almost enough to make me want to permanently dress her in shapeless gender-neutral coveralls.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-05 06:23 pm (UTC)"and a flower"
Date: 2007-09-05 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-06 04:13 pm (UTC)