Eyes Wide Shut

I'm not sure who actually reads this blog or not. Being the father of two boys both under the age of four is exhausting to the point I don't find a lot of time to write and post. But I do what I can. Plus I don't really have any dedicated fans out there like Dooce or Perez Hilton, I just sorta see this blog more of a little diary or journal that my kids can look back on when I'm old and gray and hopefully see that their father was actually cool once.

A lot of things big events have happened in the past few months and if I actually do have any readers out there, I'm probably leaving them hanging, since certain key plot points have been brought up and dropped. So allow me to sum up:

Previously on LOST....

About four months ago, Colton at the age of five months was diagnosed with a rare eye condition known as Nystagmus. Nystagmus is basically an involuntary and rapid movement of the eyes. Typically people with nystagmus have low vision and in a lot of cases they are considered leaglly blind. Oh and did I mention nystagmus is incurable even with the aid of glasses and contacts? Colton's nystamus is very mild but his eye doctor recommended a series of tests to rule out certain causes. The root of nystagmus with people born with the condition usually stems from one of the following: 1. Brain tumors 2. Ocular Albinism or 3. Causes unknown.

So about two months ago, Colton had an MRI to rule out any tumors in his brain. Needless to say, that was an extremely traumatic experience for Danielle and I. Watching your baby being sedated and inserted into a giant metal tube so that doctors can search for lesions on his brain is pretty rough. Oddly enough, Colton was a real trooper through the entire ordeal. We actually had several nurses comment that they had never seen a baby so calm.

Several days later we received that good news: NO BRAIN TUMORS!

After that was ruled out we moved on to find out if he had ocular albinism. Ocular albinism is a condition where the eyes don't have enough pigment. It's a permanent condition to which there is no cure. Most people with O.A are considered legally blind. This was our second fear, that our son would live a life where he could never operate a motor vehicle and be considered handicapped.

Fingers crossed and prayers said, we visited a second eye doctor who specializes in Ocular Albinism. After a nail-biting hour long examination he deliver the news to Danielle and I: Colton DOES NOT have Ocular Albinism.

As soon as we walked out of the doctors office, Danielle broke down in tears. (The good kind of tears.)


The doc said Colton's eyes look healthy and his nystagmus is on the VERY mild side of things, so he suspects that his vision is pretty good. Obviously he'll require further check-ups that make sure, but right now he believes Colton sees just fine.

So now that simply means that the cause of Colton's nystagmus falls into the camp of UNKNOWN. So people are simply born with shifty eyes and no one knows why. But you know what? We'll take it. Our son is otherwise healthy and can see just fine.

We've started vision therapy to help dampen the nystagmus and strengthen his eyes and he undergo therapy session for the next few months. In the end we hope to get his vision the best that is can be. It will probably never be 20/20 but that's just fine.

After all, when's he older he's going to have to be able to help me spot elk in the timber up on Roaring Fork when I'm too old to see.