Willa's eye, arm, and more!

We had our eye appointment on Wednesday and it went so well! I was worried that we hadn't done enough of the drops because the office had made it sound like her pupil should be filling nearly her entire iris. We did the drops as directed, but even with Willa "cooperating" she kept her eyes closed. I would put the drop in the inner corner of her eye and wait for it to seep in, but I never really knew how much was getting in there. The last few times, Ryan held her down while I attempted to open the eyelid, which mainly just made her squeeze her eyes tighter shut. Willa was a trooper, though. Even though there were tears and protests every time, she didn't kick or scream or fight. She knew we had to do it and the sticker and promise of a surprise at the end was very helpful.

The eyes were dilated enough and the doctor and assistant were very, very happy and pleased. For some reason, the Atropine drops work better on hyperopia and "pull out" whatever they are looking for. So, they were able to get her eyes to 20/20 by using these drops. With the regular drops, we were only able to ever get them to 20/30. That's fantastic news because with her new prescription they will be able to correct the eye turning both close up and at a distance. If the drops hadn't worked, then the bifocal would have corrected her up close, but we wouldn't be able to do anything about distance.

Willa is getting really used to these appointments and she is just so adorable that they love her there. First of all, I dress her very sweetly so that she looks adorable :). But, she knows and will say her letters instead of having to look at the pictures, which the techs all love. Her little voice is so precious saying, "L, O, H...." She also gets kind of proud knowing the letters, so she's very happy with herself.  Though, when the letters get too small, she feels a little badly and embarrassed when she can't tell what they are, but I'm trying to help her with that.

We took her most recent glasses frames in to get the new prescription put in, but it's time for us to say good-bye to her first purple pair, which makes me sad. I still think they are so cute on her, but you can tell they are getting small and the doctor even mentioned it twice (at our first appointment in January and this follow-up). I'll probably order an inexpensive back-up pair, but I will miss our purple glasses.

I also think I forgot to give everyone the closing chapter on the ER debacle with Willa's arm. I phoned the ER and spoke to the manager. Then, a few days later I got a phone call from the Director of the ER. He's a physician and really the one calling the shots there. He asked about everything - the experience at the ER, the diagnosis, setting the arm, and then what we found out when we went to the pediatric orthopedist. I thought that was the end of it, but then a week later I got a letter in the mail from him waiving our patient fee responsibility for the evening. It was the patient fee for the physician part of the bill and I think our insurance actually covered everything anyway, but I was very happy to get the letter. In case anything does happen, I have it saved and filed away.

That brings me to our next fee debacle. I got the bill for Willa's original surgery a few weeks ago and it was around $900. This was quite a big more than the $50 co-pay that I had expected to be the only charge. I called the clinic and they explained that the insurance was billing it as our second tier plan since I used the second tier doctor. I thought that since the surgery center was under our first tier plan that we were covered, but apparently the insurance follows the doctor. If you remember, we went to the Tier II doctor after the Tier I doctor couldn't see her soon enough. We couldn't get in with him until a whole week after the accident and the bone had not been set, then we had to do immediate surgery.

I called the insurance up and the person was very helpful. Basically, I'm disputing the bill and asking them to cover it under Tier I. I think I have a good case, but after talking to the orthopedist, I'm pretty sure that the insurance isn't going to budge. He's writing a letter for us saying that surgery was necessary and couldn't wait, but he says that in the past whenever he's done this the only way the insurance will waive it is if the Tier I doctor writes a letter saying the HE didn't have time to do it. At least, it's allowing me to vent my frustrations and make me feel like I'm at least doing something.

This is a brilliant business plan, though! Only have one Tier I doctor who can't possibly see everyone in a timely manner, but then require written documentation from him, that he can't see you - which he can't give you since he didn't have time to see you.

One blind mouse

Unrelated photo of Willa finishing her puzzle. She is moving onto more difficult puzzles, gets easily frustrated, and hates for anyone to help her. It's a bit wearing to have her yell and not accept help, but I suppose it makes success all the sweeter.

When Willa got her new prescription back during the summer, we returned to the doctor in September to make sure it was working. Well, the bad eye wasn't straightening quite as much as it needed to, so we decided to watch it closely and come back for another appointment in four months. We went back in January and the eye was even worse. This wasn't surprising, since Ryan and I both felt like we could see at home that it was a little off. The doctor thinks she might need bifocals, but first she wanted to try to get a better look at the eyes and maybe get a stronger prescription.

In order to do this, she would need to get a super strong dilation in the eyes. So, the doctor perscribed these really strong eye drops. We have to do the drops three times a day for three days before our next appointment. As you can imagine, dilating the eyes just once at the doctor's office was bad enough, but now we have to do it at home, three times a day for three days!! We started the drops today and I just feel badly for her. Besides the unpleasantness of the eye drops, she has all the effects of dilated eyes - she can't focus up close, it's often too bright for her. It just makes me so sad for her. The effects might last up to two weeks after we stop the drops!

She has been a trooper, but the drops still scare her a lot. I had a brilliant idea this morning as we were getting ready to do the first drops. I had a Sofia nightgown and shoes that I had bought on clearance. Sometimes if I find a good deal on something, I will get it and just hide it away until the right time (birthday, job chart prize, etc). I got those out and I made her a special sticker chart with ten boxes, which is the number of times we have to do the drops. We explained the chart for her and the brought out the nightgown and shoes for her to look at. I'm keeping them out so she can see them to help her focus on her goal. She gets to put a sticker on after each time we do the drops and we count down to how many boxes are left. We also watched this clip from Elmo's World about the eye doctor. June was watching it earlier this week and I think it was a tender mercy that I noticed it. We watched it about three times with Willa and commented on all the same things she does at the eye doctor, including the eye drops. I think it really helped her and calmed her down to go through it like that. One day down, two to go!