New Glasses

The optometrist's shop must have rushed Nolan's new eyeglasses frames after they ordered the wrong ones. Within 24 hours, we received a call stating they were ready to be picked up!

He is so excited to have his new glasses. He picked out an orange case and was thrilled to wear his new specs to school. These are definitely the right frames, and Nolan is pleased that the arms match his ski helmet (both are green).

We will pick up his new hearing aids on Wednesday. I am looking forward to it, because every other word is "what?" at the moment. I think his old aids are on their last legs!

New Glasses and New Hearing Aids: FAIL

On Tuesday, we were supposed to drive up to Williamsville to get Nolan's new hearing aids. The audiology center called and confirmed the appointment, I took the day off work, and sent Nolan to school on Tuesday morning in a state of glee - he was very excited about his new "ears."

The phone rang an hour before I was supposed to leave. The audiologist called, and said that the hearing aids didn't have the correct FM receivers, so there was no point in driving up to Williamsville, since we'd just have to return a few days later to have the FM receivers installed.

Apparently, the audiologist had noticed the wrong FM receivers were shipped from Phonak when they arrived in December, and had her staff member place an order for the correct ones. The proper receivers never arrived, and she checked on the status the day we were to drive up to collect the hearing aids. Phonak had no record of Nolan's name and no record of the order. The new FM receivers have been ordered and are on a "rush" status, but we won't be able to collect them until Wednesday the 22nd. Nolan was beyond disappointed, but what can you do?

On the bright side, at least they managed to call BEFORE we had driven for 2 hours to the hearing center.

Today, we were supposed to pick up Nolan's new glasses. I took another day off work, and Nolan missed his morning classwork. We arrived at Spectrum and the technician pulled out a set of frames. Blue and brown ones.

Nolan said, "They're supposed to be green!"

Nolan with his old glasses at the optometrist. This was supposed to be the "before" picture.

There was some argument - the tech insisted these were the correct frames, until she checked the serial number we had actually ordered - but we had ordered the frames with the green arms to match Nolan's ski helmet. Once the records were checked, she admitted the wrong frames had been ordered.

So Nolan doesn't have new glasses, either.

Unfreakingbelievable.

Now I get to take 2 more days off work - though we're not sure when the new glasses will be in. They have to order new lenses and get the proper frame sent to the store.

Hopefully sometime by the end of January, Nolan will have new hearing aids and glasses. Heavens knows that we pay enough for these necessary items - if only the medical staff were competent enough to provide them!

New Hearing Aids and Glasses

We haven't picked them up yet, but Nolan's new hearing aids are on order. We will drive up to Buffalo on January 14th to pick them up - we chose the Bolero Q70 SP model. These hearing aids have 16 channels (as opposed to the eight channels Nolan currently has) and are water-resistant. They also have an integrated FM receiver.

The integrated FM is a huge plus. Nolan's personal FM system has not been working properly since he started school in September. He has a Phonak Inspiro, and it has had multiple issues. First, the transmitter was sent to Phonak and they did some basic maintenance... but the transmitter would not work once it was sent back to the school. Phonak replaced the transmitter when it was sent in for the second time, as there was a faulty circuit board. Then it was sent in for a third time because it wouldn't work. Now, one hearing aid won't register the FM signal - but this time, we think it is the hearing aid and not the FM system. Hopefully getting Phonak aids (instead of the Unitron aids he currently has) will help solve our FM problems. While his teachers are so happy to state that he "compensates well," lip reading and filling-in-the-blanks is not the same as actual hearing. He misses a lot.

He is also getting new glasses, which will be picked up the day after getting his new hearing aids. I am excited for his soon-to-be improved vision and hearing!

In other news, the windchill has caused our school to cancel for two days in a row (-30 Fahrenheit with the windchill, -12F as the "regular" temperature). It is warming up tonight, and will actually rain on Saturday. The kids are getting a bit antsy, as the weather has been too cold to play outside and there is a lot of pent-up energy here!

Vision Check-Up

Nolan had an appointment with his orthoptist today. An orthoptist is a person who specializes in the treatment of amblyopia, for those who don't frequent pediatric ophthalmology clinics - Nolan has a visit with her every few months to verify that his vision is stable or improving with his glasses.

He had a quick vision check today. The good news: he can now see in three dimensions. Awesome!

The bad news: his eyes are separating again. There is a 2-line difference between his left and right eye (corrected vision differences - even with glasses, his right eye sees worse than his left). He is still using both eyes, which is good, but we obviously want to correct the poor vision in the right eye.

The current plan is to do a dilated eye exam in November to see if his prescription has changed. If that is the cause behind the discrepancy, then new glasses will suffice. If his vision hasn't really changed that much, then he will have to start patching the strong eye to force the weak one to work. The orthoptist did a "quick and dirty" check on his prescription in the weak eye, and he doesn't appear to have a prescription change. There is a fairly decent likelihood that he'll have to patch in the fall, but we'll take it as it comes.

Otherwise, it was a really easy visit. He showed off his knowledge of letters ("does he know the letters HOTV?" "He knows ALL of them, lady!") and aced the stereoscopic (3-D vision) test. We grabbed lollipops on the way out and we ran home to get ready for soccer practice.

The only negative of our eye appointments is that Nolan hates leaving the office. They have a really cool playhouse and the waiting room is decorated with giant Monarch butterflies. The eye doc is our favorite place to go!

Fall Down Go Boom

Nolan's competitive spirit will stand him in good stead...someday. It is not always a wonderful thing when he competes with his brother by racing on the snow-slicked sidewalk in front of our local mall. He face-planted, and actually slid on his head for about a foot. I really thought the damage was going to be worse than it was, but fortunately he escaped with no bloody scrapes. He does have a decent goose-egg. And broken glasses.

In other news, we have a crazy-busy weekend filled with Nolan's last tennis class, Matt's piano lesson, and a hockey tournament that includes a game tomorrow at 7:00am. At least we don't have to travel for the hockey tournament!

New Eyes

We picked up Nolan's new glasses today. This pair has the cable arms that we love so dearly, and fit his little face a lot better than the online glasses. They're Disney frames, so Nolan is quite excited to have "Mickey Mouse" glasses. There used to be tiny Mickeys on the end of original arms, but the Mickey Mouse emblems had to come off to put the cable arms on.

We have kept the glasses purchased online for a "back-up" pair, but hopefully we won't need them!

The Trouble with Online Glasses

I tried ordering glasses online for Nolan, to save a little money and to get them quickly over the Christmas holidays. With his amblyopia, I want to make sure that we stay on top of prescription changes so that his right eye continues to improve.

Unfortunately, ordering online is really hard with kids. Most sites don't allow you to sort by specific frame size, and what an online site claims is a "small" frame is really a frame that might fit a ten year old. There aren't many frames for small preschoolers online.

I found some "Badger" frames at $39 Eyeglasses and bought them because they were one of the only pairs with a 120mm temple length. The glasses arrived and they were simply too big. The temples were much longer than 120mm (closer to 125mm) and they just didn't fit our little guy's face. This isn't really the fault of the online retailer - small preschoolers can be hard to fit.

I called our local optician's shop the other day and went in to look for glasses that would fit Nolan. He's so small that only ONE pair fit his small face - a pair they had in a drawer underneath all the display glasses. He almost wears an infant sized frame. His new glasses (a Disney frame, with tiny gold Mickey Mouse emblems on the temples) will be ready in a week or two.

We also found that his PD (pupilary distance) had changed in the past six months - not a huge change, but it went from 50mm to 51mm. Getting a proper PD measurement is critical to fitting glasses, so I'm glad I took him in. I tried measuring it myself, but if you have ever tried to do this with a four year old child, you know it is impossible.

In the meantime, the optician adjusted Nolan's online eyeglasses to help them fit better. They're staying up much better since the adjustment. They're still slightly too big (you can see how the lenses are a bit too wide for his face), but at least he's looking through the lenses again.

I learned my lesson - I won't buy online again (for Nolan) unless it is just for sunglasses. In the meantime, we're very grateful that our local optician bent the temples around his ears and fixed the nose pad to keep his current glasses on his face!

The First Black Eye

Soccer Ball + Glasses = Ouch.