I am the mother of a 4 ½ yr old girl who attends St. Bernard’s Preschool on Atwood Ave in Madison, WI three days a week. When she was 3 ½ yrs old, Prevent Blindness came in to her preschool and did a vision screening on all of the children. We received notice that our daughter, Kala, did not pass the vision screening because her left eye “drifted inward”. I was alarmed, to say the least, and studied her left eye for quite some time and did not notice it. I also asked our daycare provider, who had been taking care of Kala since she was a baby and now two days a week, to please watch for this drifting left eye. She could not say for certain whether or not she noticed anything…it was that slight, if it was there at all.
Prevent Blindness’s screening notification recommended that we notify Kala’s primary care physician, which we did at her 4 yr check up, just as a precautionary measure, thinking her physician would not notice anything either, but we wanted her professional opinion, just to be safe. Kala’s physician studied her eyes hard and finally noticed a little something similar to what Prevent Blindness had noticed, but said it was very minor and hardly noticeable, but we were welcome to see a specialist, if we wanted to pursue it further.
We had to wait about six months to get in to see a pediatric eye specialist. It was a nerve wracking six months, but I was assured that waiting this long would not make matters worse or have any permanent ramifications. We saw the specialist and it was about a three hour visit, during which most of it I felt they were not finding anything and I felt a big sigh of relief. Kala was reading all of the eye charts very well and I was certain there was nothing wrong.
Unfortunately, the appointment ended with me being advised that, yes, Kala had a lazy left eye, and we would need to further monitor it. We are scheduled for another appointment very soon with the specialists, about six months since the initial appointment, where we find out what is the next step. We were reassured at the initial visit that Kala’s prognosis is good and that we were very lucky to have had this caught so early before her eyesight was truly affected.
I hope that Prevent Blindness is able to screen every child in Dane County and beyond. I am positive that if they hadn’t come into our preschool that we would still be oblivious to Kala’s miniscule “lazy eye”. We cannot say enough about Prevent Blindness and their early, even miraculous, detection. Her parents didn’t notice it, her daycare provider didn’t notice it, her preschool didn’t notice it, but Prevent Blindness did!
Thank you so very much, Prevent Blindness!!!
Gratefully,
Shannon Algrem
I would like to drop you a small thank you note for the great service that you provide. My 2 ½ year old son’s vision was tested and the test came revealed that he should be seen by a doctor. Since then he has been diagnosed with a “lazy eye.” At this time he is wearing glasses & working on wearing a patch. I believe this would have not been detected without this screening. To look at my son you can not tell that he has a lazy eye, but the doctor did say that if this was not caught or treated early on in his life his eye would not be able to be treated the way it is now. On behalf of my family & I we would like to give you a big THANK YOU!!!!
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