October 4, 2009
A New Look on Life

We received a letter from the school that Gabrielle failed her vision screening test. We needed to follow up with an exam with an eye doctor. So after, several phone calls to various places inquiring about their prices, etc. We decided to take her right to the local Ravenna Optical. While we waited for her appointment date to arrive, I had spoken to several friends who had received the same letter the previous year. All of these friends said their child's eyes ended up being fine. So, I was hopeful that this was the case for Gabrielle as well. She hadn't demonstrated any symptoms of not seeing well and hadn't complained of headaches or anything.

When the appointment finally arrived, we were surprised to hear that not only did Gabrielle need glasses but if we hadn't corrected it she very well could have lost all of the sight in her right eye by the time she was a teenager. She is far sighted (meaning she can see far away but had difficulty seeing close up like for reading). Her left eye is 20/20 vision but her right eye was bad, really bad. Her prescription is a +400. We had to order special bi-focal grade lenses for her glasses in order to prevent her lenses from being almost a 1/4" thick.

The next part was the hard part - as anyone who knows Gabrielle knows that she has a definate opinion of what she does and doesn't like and picking out frames was going to be a battle of wills. After several pair of frames that she wouldn't even try on, she saw a pair that she liked. Once she put them on she decided that she looked like her Aunt Melissa and that was it - those were the glasses she wanted. I really had to fight her to try on a few more styles to make sure that we likes these best. Fortunately, for me - the ones Gabrielle picked were the ones I did like the best and so an agreement was reached and the glasses were ordered.

The first day of school with her new glasses just happened to also be stuffed animal day. Nicholas had the bright idea of taking the lenses out of Sam's old baby sunglasses and having her kitty wear them to school. It was a perfect idea - as it seemed to take some of the focus off from Gabrielle's apprehension of walking into her class for the first time with new glasses. It made the day fun and exciting as she kept showing off her stuffed animals new glasses too.