"Mommy I think I lost my eyes!"

Thus spoke Eli after wearing his newly adorned "pirate" patch. Clearly (no pun intended), he could not see very well!

As many of you know Eli has always had "eye issues". Initially he had strabismus (look it up of you want), I have it a little, my mom had it a lot, so we figured it was genetic. Now in retrospect we know it was the tumor causing the problems. We used to have to patch Eli in hopes of strengthening the eye muscles so that he would not loose his vision due to the added effort of using a weak eye. Well we are at it again, in hopes of saving any vision he has in his right eye.

Over the past months, because of the pressure the tumor has placed on the optic nerve, he is loosing vision at a rapid rate. We hope it has stabilized since the pressure has been relived due to the decrease in hydrocephalus (head full of water/CSF) which give the tumor more room. You may be asking why pressure hurts a nerve. Well, a nerve, in this situation is like a big blood vessel. If you pinch it, you loose the flow or nutrients/blood to the eye and it atrophies and dies, as with any tissue or organ in your body when blood flow is restricted (hence why we should not smoke, watch our blood pressure watch our weight and get exercise so as to keep all our little and big arteries unobstructed).

When we went to the doctor to talk about his vision, he said that the only real way to know how much vision, if any, Eli has was to patch his "good" eye and see what he could do/see with the "bad" eye. Furthermore, if it turns out Eli does have some vision left in his eye, we will need to continue to patch it for a while. By patching it, it will force Eli to USE IT. As he uses it, it will get stronger and stronger. The vision will not get better, but his ability to USE the vision he has in that eye will remain. If we do NOT patch him, he will loose the ability to use whatever vision the eye has because the muscles and other nerves that control that eye will weaken and atrophy from NON-USE alone. Sound weird? Imagine you split your arm because it hurts. After a few months you remove the splint because your arm is feeling better. But now your arm is weak, and it is awkward to use it. You have already been compensating with one arm fine over the past months. So, slowly, because it is "easier" to use the one arm than both you forget you have two arms and use only one. That's ridiculous you say (El's says all the time). But, if you apply that extreme example to the eye, which you have less voluntary control over (you don't think about moving your eyes), you can see how easy it would be.

Now before any of you get all worked up and depressed, let me tell you this. If Eli does end up loosing the sight in his eye, he will be no different and it REALLY will NOT affect his life. Case in point (as told to us by our truly wonderful ophthalmologist Dr. King):

Wesley Walker, Wide Receiver, New York Jets who played at this level of football with only one eye. Especially cool...they designed plays so that the ball lined up with his "good" eye. In doing a quick search I also found these people (the link is below with others):

Sammy Davis, Jr. (1923-1990) African-American actor, singer and dancer. Lost his left eye in an auto accident in 1954.

Sandy Duncan. Actress. One eye disabled following removal of an optic-brain tumor.

Peter Falk (1927-) American actor. Lost his right eye at age three as a result of a tumor. (http://yedda.com/questions/Famous_one-eyed_people_names_eye_5041282419924/)

So at worst! Eli will be among this list of distinguished and successful people.

Citation for the photo: http://www.medical-look.com/systems_images/Optic_nerve.gif