Our Kind of Happiness: Parker's Patches

Due to his pediatric congenital glaucoma in his left eye, Parker has worn a patch over his good eye, the right eye, for 1-2 hours every day since he was 7 months old (he was diagnosed with this condition at 6 months old). We were told from the very beginning of his diagnosis from his ophthalmologist and glaucoma specialist that he would at some point have to wear a patch over his good eye to strengthen his bad eye. They told us he would hate it, but this was the only way to ensure he keeps vision in his bad eye. We learned that if we don't put in the work now and patch his eye religiously, day in and day out, that his bad eye would develop amblyopia, or lazy eye, and had the potential to lose vision altogether in that eye down the road. Well that's all we needed to hear. Talton and I swore that we'd make Parker wear that patch every single day, and we have. Parker is such a trooper. I'm sure he'd rather not wear a patch every morning, but once I get it on him along with his glasses, he goes on with his day like everyone else. You'd be impressed with his ability to compensate for that eye being covered. We are beyond proud of him. He's only 17 months old and is such a strong little guy.

Well when the day came and his doctor told us it was time to start patching his good eye, we were handed a handful of boring, manila colored patches and informed that we could buy more at the local drug store. Little did she know, but I had already begun my search for cuter patches for my precious boy. I told Talton that if my baby had to deal with this, I was going to be sure he was cute doing it. After much research, I finally stumbled across a web site that sells the most adorable patches (It's www.myipatches.com in case you or anyone you know needs patches that aren't drug store manila boring. :) ).

Because I think Parker is unbelievably adorable with these patches on, I wanted to be sure to document every one of them. Here are pictures of Parker's patches, some from when he first began patching (even before he got glasses) up to the patches he's wearing right now.

This was the very first patch Parker ever wore. This was the morning after his first trabeculotomy (eye surgery). This patch is over his left eye and it's made of metal to be sure that he didn't rub or touch his eye in any way after the surgery.

Notice the band-aid on his forehead? That's where they had to put his IV because they couldn't find a vein anywhere else. :( Oh, and see that white thing on his arm? That's called a "no no". It velcroed on and kept him from bending his arm to touch the patch and/or eye.