A word from Dad

Below I’ve copied an email from Murray to Dr Frikkie Potgieter, and Frikkie’s reply. Frikkie works closely with the optoms at Saks, Taylor & Brauer, and he was one of the first opthalmologist’s we consulted in May last year, two days after we found out about his cataracts. He prayed for us, in his consulting room, on that Thursday. He was hugely instrumental in advising us on the course of action to take with Cammy.

I include if for those who might read the blog with an understanding of optics and its jargon, and also for those who might like to hear things from Dad’s perspective.

Dear Frikkie,

Thank you for inquiring about my laaitie – he’s doing quite well. He is reaching all his developmental milestones and is really busy around the house (15 months old now and running around like a hooligan). All the OT’s he has seen have told us he’s really bright from what they can tell (Peter therefore says he must then take after his mom, because it certainly isn’t his dad) and he enjoys music a lot – when I play my guitar or mess around badly on the piano he really enjoys it.

His eyes are doing as well as can be expected – Jacobus was unable to implant IOL and so it has fallen on me to do some very difficult contact lens work. He currently wears +39.00D back vertex power silicone hydrogel lens in the right eye and a +31.00 BVP in the left eye and he sees pretty well with them although, as you know, an accurate idea of VA is not always possible with such little people – he’ll pick up paper clips easily and I’ve seen him pick up staples from the desk, but I’m not sure how clearly he sees those things. Those lenses leave him about -2.00 myopic to give him better near vision while he’s playing, but he’s moving around so much I’m about to change to contact lenses to give him distance vision and fit a bifocal over that for near. I’m hesitating because any frame I’ve put on him up ‘til now gets immediately removed and fed to our golden retriever. I’m waiting for some lenses from the UK on which I changed the design a little bit and I’ll see how well those fit before attempting the CL and over-specs option. The silicon hydrogel material behaves very differently to the local lens because of different thicknesses (and refractive indexes), friction coefficients and material flexibility which makes the lenticular zone ‘bubble’ a little more and the para-lenticular ‘skirt’ stiffer. (This makes the lens move more on the eye.) We’ll see how things go. He has an alternating ESOT with a tendency to have an overactive IO muscle in the non-fixating eye, although that is getting less and less and the moments of binocular fixation are getting longer and more frequent. (We are doing as much visual therapy as one can with a little person.) The last EUA we did, pressures were normal and his retinas looked great. We’ll check him out again in about 3 months time and will be praying for things to improve – I’d hate him to develop GL.

That’s about it – I’ll let you know if there are any further changes and thanks again for keeping him in your thoughts.

Regards,
Murray

Dear Murray

Thank you sincerely for your feedback on little Cameron.

It seems to be going above all expectations with the little one. We pray that his further progress will be uncomplicated. While reading your feedback below, it struck my mind that this special little boy was given to you and Dalene, because the Lord knew that you would be the perfect parents for him. I'm completely convinced that nobody in the world would be more caring, and putting more effort into him getting his vision sorted.

We pray the Lord's grace upon you, His Wisdom in dealing with your little boy as well as His healing Hand upon Cameron.

With kind regards

Frikkie