First Eye Exam

First eye exams can be scary for many people, especially for young children. In our office we try our best to make the experience as comfortable and less intimidating as we can.

Last week I had the cutest 6 year-old boy who bursted into tears the moment he sat in the chair. So much tears. I was so surprised. Usually the tears would come out when it’s time for the dilation drops, not before. I haven’t even touched his eyes!

I asked if this was his first eye exam and he nodded, still sobbing. I looked at the preliminary test results: he was very near-sighted. “Are you worried about wearing eyeglasses?” He nodded again. More tears. “I don’t want people to make fun of me.”

There it was. He was so worried about being teased if he had to wear glasses. I asked him, “Do you have friends who wear glasses?” “Yes,” he said. “So you see, lots of people wear glasses to help them see better.” I assured him we were going to find out very soon how much clearer he was going to see. Our eye exam became way more fun with my super cool Transformer looking equipment that’d give anyone laser sharp vision, and my high powered microscope could identify any villain hiding in the depths of your eyes. We zapped them all with our high intensity beam of light.

After figuring out his prescription, I put a trial pair of glasses on his eyes, and he had the BIGGEST smile on his face. He excitedly said out loud to his parents standing across the room “Mom, dad, I can SEE your faces now!”

The shock on his parents’ faces showed they had no idea how blurry he was seeing.

The rest of the time he couldn’t stop smiling as he was picking out his frames. Everyone was telling him how cool he was going to look. It made me wonder how on earth he came in believing people would make fun of him wearing glasses. Had he seen other kids teasing someone in glasses before? Had his family said something negative about glasses? I remember when I was his age glasses were so unpopular. I thought things have changed!

Anyway, my super cool little kiddo will rock his very stylish first pair of glasses to class. He can finally see clearly for the first time. I have a feeling his baseball game will improve as well as his confidence.

Until your next eye exam, kiddo!

Dr. Ly