As some of you know, Kai had an appointment yesterday with an ophthalmologist to check out his "sleepy eyes". Yes, it's cute, but he really is WIDE awake here.
Kai had a fun time at the doctor's office. He loved the doctor when she was playing with toys for him and making funny noises. But then she betrayed him by putting drops in his eyes and making him hold still. Poor kiddo.
The visit turned out just about as we expected. Kai has a condition called congenital Ptosis (tosis). It just means that he can't open his eyes all the way. The levator muscle in his eyelids are either missing or very small and weak. Supposedly the muscle just didn't develop correctly. He has been opening his eyes with his eyebrow muscles and compensating for his narrow field of vision by tilting his head way back.
Testing showed that his vision has not been affected thus far, but the doctor believes it probably will be sometime within the near future. That is because his eyelids sit at different levels of openness. His left side is heavier than the right. This can lead to a change in the shape of the eyes and an imbalance that will affect his vision. We are scheduled for another check up in two months and will continue to monitor his vision. As soon as any deterioration is noted, Kai will need to get surgery. Ideally he would wait till he's 3 or 4 years old because then he would only need one surgery. The doctor thinks that he likely will need to have it sooner than that and then need to have it repeated when he's older. :-(
The procedure seems quite interesting... They will create an "eyelid sling" out of silicone or fascia from his thigh (if he's older than 3). They weave it along the lid, over the lashes and then pin up the loose ends of the silicone/fascia into his eyebrow muscle. As a visual, it will be somewhat of a triangle shape. After it is done, he will be able to lift his lids using his eyebrows. He does this already, but the doctor says it will be much more subtle than what he does now and he will actually be able to open them. It worries me that his expressions will be different than they would be, but the doc says they adjust well and learn how to make the expressions they want to.
We have a little more research to do and we hope to talk to the surgeon to learn as much as we can. We will keep everyone updated as we learn anything. For now we have a cute sleepy baby!
