Fighting Mad for New Contacts

Chloe was fitted for her new gas permeable (hard) contacts last Tuesday. First, Brian (our resident vision center specialist) had to touch a little paper-ey brush thing to each eye. Chloe was less than pleased with this process. This placed a bit of iodine on her eyeball that would help Brian see any bubbles under the lenses. Then he tried to place the first lens in the left eye. No go. She punched it off his finger...twice. After digging the contact out from under her butt (she was strapped into her stroller) the second time I offered to do it. She fought me almost as hard as she did him but I was able to get it in. Then he shone a blue light into her eye and looked at the contact through a special lens that he held over his own eye. This was tricky since Chloe was thrashing her head from side to side and crying. No go. He could see the contact moving around too much. We'll need to try a different size. So he took out the little plunger and pried Chloe's tightly squeezed eye open as I tried to simultaneously hold her arms down and keep her head still. This was not pretty.

We had to repeat this process for two contacts in the left eye and three contacts in the right eye.

And the first contact in the right eye was actually such a bad fit that, unbeknownst to Brian, it slid down under her bottom eyelid before he tried to plunge it out. He unwittingly stuck the little plunger (suction cup) directly onto her eyeball. The telltale 'POP' of him pulling it off is a horrible sound to hear. (I've done this more than once in my time. It's a painful sound.) Then he had to try and move the contact back into place so that he could get it out. Again, not easy to do with a screaming crying thrashing baby who has no idea what or why you're doing this to her.

Somewhere in the middle of all this I pulled out the warm bottle I'd brought from home and gave it to her. She sucked it down. Her eyes became oh so heavy and she barely kept them from rolling to the back of her head as she drank. She was exhausted from all that crying and fighting.

We do not like contact fittings.

Yesterday I put in and took out two contacts. It used to be so easy. I'd lay Chloe on her back on the carpet. Solana would hold the musical glow worm over Chloe's face to distract her. And I'd quickly pull her eyelids apart and pop the contact in with my finger or stick the plunger on it and pull it out. That wasn't exactly how it worked yesterday. I needed Dave to help because she fought just as hard as she did at the fitting. This morning was pretty bad, too. Tonight was better. She only made a couple of grunts and fought mildly. In fact, I don't think she really fought at all when I swooped in to grab the second one.

I expect and hope it continues to get better until we're back to our old routine. But, oh my...this little one has some fight in her! Let me tell you!