My Children's Eye Condition

The doctor pointed to the largest picture--the picture equivalent of the giant E. "What is this?" he said gently.  We hadn't gotten an answer for a single picture that made any sense.  Asking about the big picture was a base line.

Emma strained, doing her best to look.  She shrugged a bit and said, "An 'X.'"  The picture was a boat.  A big, giant boat with a sail.  For a moment, the doctor and nurses thought that she didn't understand.  "These aren't letters.  They're pictures," someone said.  It didn't matter.  It looked like an X to Emma.

"Perhaps," the doctor said, in his pediatric doctor tone, "that you should set an appointment to see an eye doctor."

Learning that Emma was blind in her right eye was tough, but in the ensuing years, it began to seem like no big deal.  She had her left eye after all.  And, aren't there loads of people who can only see out of one eye?

But the November afternoon that Emma told me that straight lines were wavy, set our family on a life-changing path.




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