On Thursday the 22nd of October Isla had an appointment with the orthoptist at the WCH for a vision test. Luckily my parents were in Adelaide at the time as you could only have one person (including siblings) accompany patients for outpatient appointments due to COVID. Obviously that’s fair enough, but it does make regular outpatient appointments a little tricky when you have a baby and no family in Adelaide.
The orthoptist uses Kay Pictures to test Isla’s vision and we have been playing with all of the pictures at home. She knows them all really well now, so we don’t have to worry about her not knowing what any of the pictures are. However, she is still too shy to talk when ever we go out so she wont actually say the names of the pictures yet. The orthoptist we had this time, Denise, tried giving her a card with all the pictures on it, so she could point to the picture being held up instead of actually saying the word. That worked really well and Isla got almost every picture right, the hardest picture being about the size of a 5c piece from around 3 meters away. She was really happy with Isla's overall vision, assuming it is mostly coming from her left eye.
Denise did a few tests covering her good eye and watching how her right eye moves and whether she is able to track a moving object with her right eye. Isla still doesn’t love anyone covering her good eye, so this is still difficult, but it’s getting easier to talk to her about and she allows us to do a little more each time.
© Alison Davey 2021