At Last…

When Baba was born his bottom eyelashes grew into his eyes, and touched his actual eyes. This happened on both eyes, and we were told by the midwife who came to see us on the ward that it was a common condition and that he would grow out of it.

When he was around three months, I had his three-month review and mentioned his eyes once more. Again we were told he would grow out of it, and to wash his eyes and gently pull his lower eyelid down to manipulate the correction.

Between three months and his ten month review, Baba had a few instances of conjunctivitis that we went to the doctors about and got antibiotics, all the while mentioning that his eyelashes didn’t seem to be improving. We told the doctors that we were concerned that they were irritating Baba and that they were contributing to the conjunctivitis and asked whether there was anything that could be done about it? 

The response we got was to wait! That most cases corrected themselves, however if they didn’t it resulted in a small operation, were there would be two cuts under his lower lashes to pull his eyelids down. But wait until he was 18 months old and carry on doing what we were doing.

The conjunctivitis seemed to subside, however the eyelashes never moved. Even though he has a daily bath and we always wash his face and eyes and always done the stroke around his eyes that we were shown to manipulate growth. Nothing has changed.

(C) 2010 And Then All I Thought About Was You

I don’t know whether you can see this clearly it is very hard to find a good picture of this, but this is Baba’s eye the dark shade on the bottom eyelid are his eyelashes! I think that this must cause him pain, I can’t actually see how it doesn’t to be honest. This photo was taken in September this year so you can see nothing has changed, his eyelashes were like this when he was born!

So when Baba was eighteen months, I booked another appointment to go and see the doctor about his eyes. I yet again explained the situation and that I didn’t think they were getting better. This time however I got told to wait until he was about three! As it was an awful operation and that we shouldn’t put him through it unless necessary, so leave it to see if it will rectify itself! Again!

This time I was furious, I came home and Mr L and I talked at length about it. We talked to our parents, and our sisters who all have children. It was a tough decision, I have to say, we looked up what the operation would entail, I agree it isn’t nice. But we still only have a rough idea of what the operation may be as we have never seen anyone to explain anything to us.

We were torn, torn between whether to wait and see and ride it out or whether to keep pushing now. The problem that we felt we faced was if it is a bad operation then we really don’t want Baba to have much of a memory about it. I am also concerned that because I have an eye problem, my pupils are oval instead of round, and I have pigmentation in the back of my eye, both congenital. That I don’t want something else to contribute to these conditions.

We also thought that it isn’t going to be a quick process so didn’t want him getting into preschool and school and then being pulled out of school for all of this to happen, that would be horrible for him. Especially as children can be cruel I would hate for him to be teased about wearing a patch and having black eyes or whatever may happen with the operation.

Mr L’s main concern was the amount that Baba had started to rub his eyes, which is a lot. It isn’t just when he is tried he rubs them very consistently throughout the day. Mr L feels that it is irritation and he could be correct.

So we decided that we were going to push this now, and get to see a specialist before anything else. The GP’s that we have seen so far have always refused to refer Baba even though we have asked and asked again, and we felt that we couldn’t make any further decisions until we had seen a specialist.

I made an appointment for today and went in with Baba nervously. I am not one to kick up a fight, but this time we actually saw our own doctor! He listened to the situation and I didn’t even have to go into my speech about school and missing out on education, he took one look at Baba’s eyes and immediately said that he needed to see a specialist, and that he didn’t know why he had not already been referred.

So there you are we are done! We have an appointment for December 22nd I know no rush! But it is an appointment, I am desperately trying to arm myself with questions about what we need to know and have thought of some already. I have spoken to Mr L and would really like him to come with us, work permitting. I think this is the appointment that we need to have to sort all this out, the poor mite has had this for two years. So I really feel at last someone is listening so let’s get it sorted!

Have any of you had any experience of this before? As I would love some advice if you have?