March 6th, 2009

Today we met Dr. William Park and his team at Envision.   Dr. Park is working with Kinnick and Carver to determine their visual acuity.  Dr. Park and team evaluated Kinnick today.  He believes that Kinnick's glasses are not the correct strength.  Hard to believe that they could be any stronger at +18 and +11.  (He has actually fit a child with +54 lens, so plenty of room for change for Kinnick) He feels like she would benefit from contact lenses instead of glasses.  He wants her vision on target with the correction at all times verses just when she looks through the center of her glasses.  He's ordering several different contact lenses and we're going to see if she'll tolerate wearing contacts.  If she tolerates the contact lenses, he's going to add a pseudo iris to the contact lens.  Currently, Kinnick has little to no iris on her eyes.  This is allowing so much light into her eyes that it is preventing her from seeing much of anything.  If she tolerates the contacts with the pseudo iris, this will control the light coming into her eyes and allow her better vision.  We don't know how much vision, yet.  Based on a visual examination, he felt like the retina in her right eye is fully attached!!! This is great news.  The last time we were in MI, there was still fluid under the retina.  If the retina is fully attached with no fluid under the retina, she may get quite a change with the new contact lenses.  He wasn't able to see much in her left eye, but didn't feel like we had a major pressure problem.  He agreed that the left eye is smaller then the right eye, but wasn't sure, based on his visual exam, what was causing the difference in size.  It is possible that the size difference is related to scar tissue or all of the surgery that she's had on her eyes.  It's also possible that there is some low pressure in the eye.  This is something that will need further evaluation during an EUA the next time we're in MI.  Dr. Park and team are not finished evaluating Kinnick's visual acuity.  He will see her another time in his office to do a sonogram on her eyes.  The sonogram will allow him to see deeper in the eye.  He'll be able to  see the state of the retina and will be able to take measurements of the eye that will allow him to prescribe the best possible lenses.  We're hoping to try the lenses next Tuesday.  I'm not excited about putting the lenses in her eyes.  However, they assure me that after a short period of time, the child will accept the lenses and putting them in will be a non-issue.

Dr. Park and team will see Carver later this month.