Day 806 - Eye Patching Gone Wrong 👁️

Thursday, March 16th, 2023

Today James wasn't feeling very good. Lots of suctioning of his nose. He is so full of mucus he is having a hard time breathing. We took James off the ventilator for PT but he ended up staying in the crib most of the time. He was very lethargic. Shortly afternoon we had him back on on the ventilator because he was just working too hard to breathe.

Mom put the eye patch on him because we recently observed his eyes drifting. We were told by his pediatric ophthalmologist that we should eye patch him on his stronger eye when he is doing this. Mom noticed that James ended up turning his head causing his working eye to drift towards the front corner. This never happened before. Mom posted in 3 of the "eye" FB groups she is in, a group for Strabismus, a group for eye patching, and a group for vision therapy. Mom doesn't even remember joining all of these groups sometimes they are recommendations from others. It is super helpful to get advice right away. Instantly several people commented that his eye doing that is not normal and that we should stop eye patching immediately. There was a strong push by almost everyone to get James into vision therapy. The overall consensus was that eye patching was a very old school and can cause more damage than good. It didn't take very long to get recommended to a local vision therapy practice, so Mom sent in the information to get an appointment. We will hold off on eye patching until we meet with them.

Mom is taking a beating. It's kind of funny to think about how James was a 1lb micropreemie and now he is kicking Mom and giving her bruises. Holding James down to suction his nose is quite an ordeal. First you have to swaddle his arms lay on top of his upper body while holding his face with one hand and the suction probe in the other. He still manages to get his legs free and strangle you around the neck. Mom has been needing to suction him so much that she developed dequervains tendonitis in her left hand and now has to wear a brace. You don't realize how often you move your thumb until you can't.

P.S. You can email James your love and support as often as you’d like. Mom and Dad read these email to James as they come in. We all love them! JamesWestonAbramowitz@gmail.com