The Day the World Went Dark

 

 

*this happened a while ago when my kids were still sharing a room*

 

It was early but the baby woke anyway and called for me.  He woke his sister in the process.  We all stumbled into the kitchen and filled a cup for me with coffee and cups for the children with milk.  We slowly lumbered down the stairs and into the tv room.  I turned on the over head lights and noticed all but one were burnt out.  We sat in the flickering light of the tv and watched cartoons.  All was quiet.

The show ended and my daughter jumped up and spun around towards me.  Then she stopped and her face went blank.

“What’s wrong?!” I asked.

“Hahaha,” she laughed.  Nervous laughter.

“Hannah, what’s wrong?!” I asked again.

“Nothing mommy, it was all black.  But it’s bright again.

“What do you mean it was all black?  You couldn’t see anything?”

“No, I couldn’t see.”

“Did you feel dizzy?”

“No.”

My heart was in my throat and I raced upstairs to where my husband was sleeping thankful it was the weekend.  I told him what had happened and handed off the baby and buckled my daughter into her carseat.  We headed to the ER.

Her vitals were taken and we waited for results.  Then they were taken again and I was thankful for the Children’s Hospital and how they were making her feel at ease.  She was shaken up by what had happened and what was happening still.  She lay in the bed as the doctor examined her quickly one last time – taking pulse and shining a light into her eyes.

“She looks in fine shape,” he said.  “Blood pressure is great, pulse is great, I can see why you were concerned and brought her in – you did the right thing.  But I can’t see any reason that this happened. ”

He shined the light into her eyes again.  “She has very reactive pupils,” he said.  I told him how the lighting conditions were in our basement.  How she’d been watching TV and then spun around really quickly to look at me – sitting in the dark.  He speculated that her pupils over corrected on her and things just looked dark.  Like coming into a dark room after being outside in the sun.

I vowed I would take her to the eye doctor as a secondary measure.  I haven’t done that yet.  We got busy with the move and things were crazy for a while.  But school is starting soon and so this is something I really need to do.  After all, we have type 1 diabetes in our family and that’s a condition that eye doctors can often recognize really early on.

 

Have you taken your kids to an eye doctor?  Did you know the care of your child’s eyes doesn’t stop there?

 

 

 

What does an Optician do?

From the LicencedOptician.ca website:

An Optician is a health professional specially trained to supply, prepare and dispense optical appliances through the interpretation of prescriptions prepared by Ophthalmologists and Optometrists. They then ensure the fit of, adjust and adapt your glasses, contact lenses or special needs vision devices. This means that a Licensed Optician interprets your vision prescription into the perfect lenses for your eyes.

Opticians can also council you on things like UV protection, sporting performance gear and more.

To help raise awareness the Licensed Opticians Council of Canada are launching a really fun contest.  It’s called the “Love your Eyes” campaign and prizes include:

A shopping spree at your favourite store; a skydiving experience for two; an IMac; spa packages; and of course, complete pairs of glasses with a Licensed Optician^OM vision care experience, are just some of the great prizes you can win.  They’re also launching some really amazing displays in Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax malls.  Check out LicencedOptician.ca to enter the contest and get details on the live events!