Peyton's Follow up Clinic....and his four eyes

Hello all, Daniel here again. This past weekend we went back down to Provo for Peyton's follow up visit with his original occupational therapist, eye doctor, pediatrician, nutritionist, etc. This is done every six months. It was great to go back and see some of his old doctors and nurses. Also, we saw some of the other babies that were Peyton's neighbors for a little while when he was in the NICU--some doing great, others not so great. Peyton, however, is doing fantastic from what the doctors say. He's very healthy, and his lungs are much better. Something rather suprising though is that he needs glasses. We knew that he would need them at some point, but we didn't think he would need them this early. As some of you know, Peyton had ROP in both eyes, which is a cause for blindness in many preemies. ROP has five stages. Once at stage 4 and 5, blindness is pretty much inevitable. Doctors have to intervene and perform a laser corrective procedure before their eyes reach those stages. Anyway, Peyton's eyes reached stage 3, but miraculously did not progress to the other stages and avoided needing laser surgery--which would have caused him to lose his periphreal vision. Because he did reach stage 3, the doctors said he would probably be nearsighted. At the follow-up clinic, the doctor said that Peyton is nearsighted in one eye and farsighted in the other. He also has stigmatisms in both eyes. Hence, the need for him to get glasses this week. It will be interesting to keep glasses on a 9 month old baby. I am sure they will be in his mouth much more than on his face. We think its a definite good thing for him developmentally, since it would be pretty hard to focus on things when your eyes are improperly balanced visually. He'll be a four-eyed stud like his daddy!