Day 1,591 - Ellie's Eyes

You know what’s frustrating sometimes about being a parent? You can think that you know the right answer about a topic and then find out later on that you were mistaken. Often times this can rear its ugly head when one is dealing with the topic of medical care for one’s children.

As I’m sure many people have noticed over the past few years, Ellie wears glasses. Personally, I’ve become so accustomed to seeing my daughter in her glasses that it looks weird at bedtime when she’s not wearing them. Ellie herself is so used to the feel of them on her face that she occasionally tries to go to bed at night while still wearing them. No, it doesn’t hurt anything but it probably isn’t very comfortable!

The reason for Ellie’s glasses has less to do with her slight prescription and more to do with the fact that she has one eye that tends to drift away from the center of her line of sight. The glasses were actually prescribed to help keep that occurring and they’ve been doing a great job. As a parent, the longer I can put off the idea of my daughter having surgery, the better.

Of course, part of Ellie’s condition means that we have to go to the eye doctor for checkups a couple of times a year to confirm that everything is doing well. For the past two years, those checkups have been at Children’s Mercy. While I can’t say enough nice things about the doctors there, I have to say that billing and insurance has been a complete nightmare. Any time she’s had a visit, it’s taken us months to sort out the financials of said visit. Not fun at all!

After our last issue as Children’s Mercy, we decided that maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to get a second opinion. Therefore, that’s exactly what we decided to do beginning with Ellie’s next eye exam, which coincidentally, was this morning. The new eye doctor of choice, Vision Source, right on North Oak a scant mile from our house. Ellie had actually been seen by them when she was one for a free infant vision screening. In addition, she’s always had her glasses made there so we were familiar with the establishment.

Upon our arrival today, we headed back to the exam room where Ellie received a glaucoma test (much to her massive chagrin) and had an image of her eye taken. From there, we headed back to the exam room where we would remain for much of the next hour and a half. Why do I know it was an hour and a half? Well, because we were able to watch almost all of Lilo & Stitch in between checks of her eyes. The biggest reason for that delay was that Ellie’s eyes just would not dilate the way they were supposed to. In fact, she eventually had to have additional drops put in (her favorite!) just to get them ready for examination. Finally, it was time to see the doctor!

Once the doctor came in, she checked Ellie over thoroughly and said that her eyes looked very healthy. However, she was able to see the drift that we had been having checked out regularly and essentially told us that we would be better off continuing to take Ellie to Children’s Mercy to keep tabs on it. The biggest reason why was that Children’s Mercy would be the ones to have to do surgery, if necessary, so it was better that they continue playing a role in her care.

I can’t say just how discouraging this was. As parents, we definitely had reached a point of intense frustration with our child’s medical care only to learn that there was really nothing else we could do. I guess the lone saving grace here is that Ellie’s situation is extremely mild and nothing serious. Regardless, it’s not much fun to convince ourselves we were doing the right thing by doing something different only to find out that we were doing the right thing in the first place.

That’s clear as mud, right?

#DaddyWrite

Day 1,586 - A Typical School Week in September 2023

So, it's been a busy few weeks. August 22nd marked the first day of school for both Ellie and Ethan. Yes, you read that correctly; Ethan is a full-fledged pre-school student. Don't make the mistake of calling him a preschooler though. He will pretty much immediately correct you and say "It's not preschool. It's K-Prep!".  Anyway, life has definitely changed somewhat for our family during this season.

Here's where I should say that Ethan actually only attends K-Prep at Northland Christian on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:00 to 11:30 am. While it's not a huge amount of time, it's definitely changed life somewhat in our household. For one thing, it means Ellie, Ethan, and I all need to make sure we're dressed and ready to head out the door on those days by about 7:40. Then, we make the short drive down to 108th Street and head to Northland Christian's new Early Childhood Campus.

Once we arrive, all three of us hop out of the car and escort Ethan inside the building and up the stairs to his classroom where he inevitably hurries inside with nary a look back. The little man doesn't even say "Goodbye" or anything. Honestly, I'm excited that he's just so happy and enjoying school so much. He's stoked to arrive each Tuesday and Thursday morning and can't wait to tell me all about his day when I arrive at 11:30 and a teacher brings him out to our car.

Now, you may have noticed that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Ellie helps me deliver Ethan to K-Prep. Once he's there, that actually leaves us with an hour to kill before Ellie needs to be at Fox Hill for school. On Tuesdays, we normally don't do much of anything exciting. For example, today, we just came home, played a board game, read a book, watched a short video, and made Ellie's lunch.

I know that it probably sounds silly but making Ellie's lunch was actually pretty fun today.  She asked for chicken nuggets in a thermos for her lunch today. No big issue there. However, instead of just making them myself, I asked her if she would like to help which she definitely did. She actually took care of almost the entire lunch making process start-to-finish. In fact, the only thing I did was cut up an apple for her. She did everything else with minor directions on my part. It's actually pretty fun to see her growing and gaining confidence in herself through simple tasks like making a lunch.

So, that was a Tuesday. On Thursdays though, our schedule is a little different. Since Ellie doesn't have P.E. and gymnastics on Thursdays, we go and play tennis for an hour to get her some physical activity. Ellie's actually been really interested in learning to play tennis over the last couple of years. She just needs consistent practice to get better. That's why I love the consistency of this time thus far. It's fun to see her building on her knowledge and carrying skills over from week-to-week. It's also just a really special activity for just the two of us to share once a week without the presence of Ethan.

I know that I really didn't say a ton of value in this blog. However, I just found it important for posterity to be able to look back and see just what an average school week looked like for us in September of 2023. It'll be interesting to me and the kids (and probably Bethany) so that's the most important thing, right?

#DaddyWrite