Just Diagnosed with Amblyopia "Lazy Eye" the emotions....

I shared all of the facts, here is the emotions behind the diagnosis.

Yesterday was a day of tears.  I look at my son and he is your typical boy.  He might even have too much testosterone in him.  He is the Alpha Male of my home.  He is very popular.  Kids just flock to him.  He loves to play soccer, ride his skateboard, ride his bike.  He like to play zombies with the nerf guns in the front yard.  He loves monster trucks and has a huge collection in his room.  He is also my momma's boy.

The doctor tells me that she is positive that the patch therapy will fix his lazy eye.  Me being the research junkie I am start googling everything I can find.  What I find is that typically earlier you are diagnosed with Amblyopia the better  (oh wow, I typed amblyopia wrong in my page title.  I have a minor case of dyslexia I hope I can fix that.)  I have also read on different message boards that patch therapy is a hit or miss.  That some people it get's better and with other's even kids who start the patching at a young age (3 yo) are still patching 5 years later with miminal results.

That is so scary to think that your son might be considered legally blind and from what the doctor tells me won't be allowed to drive as an adult based on how his vision is now. (My son wants to own his own monster truck one day and race it.) 

I know he is smart and picks up things so quickly.  He learned to ride his bike in 10 minutes.  I'm serious he got his bike his brother held the back of the seat to get him going and then he was off riding like his older brothers (trying tricks, skidding out etc).  I am hoping that how quick his brain absorbs things around him that with the patch therapy and glasses his brain turns back on the signals from his left eye.

My husband's emotions are different.  He was going through stages of denial.  Telling me that our son can't be blind or "legally blind" that he has to be able to see out of his left eye because he can tell how many fingers he hold up from a couple of feet away when he covers his right eye. That our son shows no signs of vision problems. 

I have read that most kids are diagnosed when they are 2-3 years old.  What I have read doesn't state if it is for the "cross eyed or out turned eyed" for lazy eye or like my son's that his eyes are perfectly aligned.  I took my son to every scheduled visit to the pediatrician.  Not once did they do any eye test's to check for astigmatism (which led to my son's lazy eye).  Not once did they do those tests.  My older son's didn't have any preschool or toddler eye exams either.  My oldest is going to be 15 in a couple months.  He had his first eye exam when he turned 5.  Same for my middle son.

How are these problems caught early if the doctors don't test early?  That is another part of my emotion, that it's my fault.  If I had known about this potential problem I could have asked my son's doctors when he was a toddler to check his eyes.  I could have gotten him glasses as an toddler and could have prevented his Amblyopia.

I'm so frustrated.  I need to be strong for my son and think positive.

I'm sorry if my thoughts are all over the place here.