Doctor, doctor, give me the news...

Today we had Caroline’s follow-up appointment with the pediatric ophthalmologist. The doctor had very good news! He thinks we will most likely avoid surgery! The visit went so smoothly. Caroline didn’t shed a single tear, which is newsworthy in and of itself! Of course, it helped that he didn’t have to dilate her eyes. Usually, though, the mere presence of someone in a lab coat or scrubs will send her into hysterics. In fact, our pediatrician doesn’t even wear a lab coat. She has gone as far as greeting Caroline in the waiting room to put her at ease, and she still comes unglued…Caroline, not the doctor.

Our first time to the eye doctor was a little more traumatic. We had noticed in China that Caroline seemed to have something in her eye, and we realized it was her bottom row of eyelashes! We were able to manipulate the eyelid a bit and get the lashes out of her eye most of the time, but it seemed to really bother her. I asked the pediatrician back home about it, and she said it is common for Asian children to have a condition called “entropion”, where the lid flips up. Over time, as the lashes become more coarse, it can cause damage to the cornea. In April we went to a pediatric eye doctor, and he was as nice as he could be…unfortunately, his chair-side manner didn’t impress Caroline. She was her happy charming self in the waiting room, but the minute he walked in the exam room, she was visibly distressed. Then we had to hold her down for the dilation drops and the exam itself…I’ll leave the rest of the story to your imagination. He determined that her eye was okay for the time being, but we would need to do a follow-up in a few months. If it didn’t improve, we would need to do a quick, outpatient surgery to stitch the bottom eyelid in place. It would have been in the crease of her eye, so it wouldn’t have affected the appearance of her eye. Nevertheless, I’m relieved that we don’t need to do that, at this point.

We headed to Target to celebrate, and we found the most adorable pink tennies…Caroline loves them, and she wore them the rest of the day. Then we met a couple of friends at Qdoba, and Caroline went straight for the chips and queso! Have I mentioned that I can no longer peacefully eat my nachos from Taco Bell? She HAS to be on my lap so that she can dip her (MY) chips in the cheese…and, yes, she’s a dangerous double-dipper! So she pretty much gets her own chips these days. We took the leftover cheese home, and Mindy actually thought she was going to snag a bite or two. Look who ended up on HER lap…