Vision 200200

Vision 200200 .. 18-07-2006

Last month, Yan had a phone call from Pie’s kindergarten teacher. She informed Pie was lagging behind the rest of his class and suspected Pie was having problem with his vision.

We then had Pie checked at an optical outlet where we were advised to go to a hospital for more comprehensive test. Off we went to the Tun Hussein Onn National Eye Hospital in PJ. An hour later, we were called into a darkened room and the ophthalmologist had Pie seated, donned him with the test spectacles and ran the standard procedure, replacing lens after lens after lens, while Pie read the wall chart reflected on a mirror. 8 minutes later, the ophthalmologist finished the test and rated his vision 200:200 and that was about it. No pointers for eye care and no counseling either, except for one little advice “ don’t watch too much TV “.

Personally I think, out of respect to the late Tun Hussein Onn who was bespectacled himself and to the imposingly named hospital (“National” Eye Hospital), maybe they should put more effort to improve on that soft skill.

To be fair, they still entertained us even though we came without any appointment. After paying the RM20 fee, we left for Mid Valley to get Pie the glasses.


The Price of Parents’ Guilt

7 months back, when Pie started pre-schooling in the new kindergarten, he had complaint getting headaches and sometimes could not see whatever his teacher wrote on the whiteboard. And what did we do about it? We just dismissed that as a common kid’s lack of enthusiasms going to school and we didn’t normally hear small kids getting any headaches.

Obviously we felt so much guilt for being ignorant and insensitive to our own child when it’s confirmed he had problem with his sight. When I first heard the term “astigmatism”, it sounded scary to me. So, I googled it on the net and found out Pie had the described symptoms!

“ Astigmatism Symptoms and Signs
What is a stigmatism? is a question that optometrists hear every day, but actually it's spelled "astigmatism." Astigmatism is the most common vision problem, but most people don't know what it is. If you have only a small amount of astigmatism, you may not notice it or have just slightly blurred vision. But sometimes uncorrected astigmatism can give you headaches or eyestrain, and distort or blur your vision at all distances. It may accompany nearsightedness or farsightedness. Usually it is caused by an irregularly shaped cornea (called corneal astigmatism). But sometimes it is the result of an irregularly shaped lens, which is located behind the cornea; this is called lenticular astigmatism. Either kind of astigmatism can usually be corrected with eyeglasses, contact lenses or refractive surgery. “

As if to make up for our shortcomings, we bought him the RM210 hardened frame, multi-coated, anti-computer glare pair of glasses and also the Mc Donald’s Sundae cone ice cream for a good measure. A new remote-controlled car unit would come later.

The Undesirable Legacy

To think of it, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the guilt we felt was more due to the belief that we did pass some bad genes to Pie. Yan had been wearing spectacles for years and my right eye sight was not that good either. And almost instantly, a tinge of sadness hit me as I saw him putting on the glasses for the first time and I was very sure Yan felt it too.

Note: Only one more question to ask, do we call an ophthalmologist a doctor?