Some more relief

We went back for the follow-up eye exam last Saturday. Munchkin got slightly irritated as usual with all the waiting. But after I agreed to Chinese for lunch, was not just well-behaved but was more or less stuck to me like super glue.

The doc said the condition was stable - and for the first time in the 3+ years that we've been seeing him - said that there was some evidence that Coats tended to stabilize for longer periods of time as children grew older. The younger you are when it gets activated, the more aggressive it is. (Munchkin was 5-1/2 when his condition was diagnosed and the doctor reckoned he'd had it for 2-1/2 years at the time.)

The OCT test showed that the macular pucker had more or less subsided completely and even the Fundus photos clearly showed fewer exudates. Thank you, God.

The vision in his Coats eye still isn't completely clear, but it is a lot better than it was. And the eye pressure is under control.

The doc also mentioned that Munchkin was the first child he'd operated upon for a vitrectomy due to Coats Disease. (I remember he'd done three other vetrectomies that day on children, but I guess now we know those weren't cases of Coats.)

(Oh, and there was a new and weird medical technician/optometrist who did Munchkin's refraction test to check his vision. We've never seen her at the hospital before. She didn't give him the regular test spectacles (don't know what they're called) into which the slip in the different lenses. Instead, she made him cover that eye with the palm of his hand - and I could see he was uncomfortable - and made him read the eye chart. If he adjusted his arm, she roughly pushed it up again! I bore around 5 minutes of that, before I stood up and asked her why she wasn't using the regular testing spectacles. She ignored me and made him read some more. But the next time she pushed his arm up again, I nearly shouted my question again. She didn't bat an eyelid, but did put those spectacles on and finished the exam. Mission accomplished.)

That evening, he rode his bicycle outside the apartment complex onto an outside road to come to a temple near our house. It was a Hanuman temple (we'd been to the Hanuman temple on Tughlaq Road in New Delhi back in May to ask for blessings ahead of Munchkin's vitrectomy) and though my heart was in my mouth for most of the time (the road goes uphill, is narrow, and has plenty of blind curves and a lane every 100 feet!) he managed it with aplomb. I was so proud. I love to see him ride his bike. I was able to learn it only when I was 13, and then I didn't get to practice much so I still can't ride one. :o( So I absolutely love to seem him whizz about.

postscript: He lost his second pair of glasses back in September and I had another one made. And the morning we had to go to the hospital, we couldn't find that pair either. Six days down, we still haven't found them. Glasses cost a pretty packet, and I'm really just tired of him misplacing important stuff - he has two sets of strings and really attractive looking glass cases and everything, but he just can't keep his things in a safe place. Sigh...