School, nothing, and Riley

A certain friend, (cough, Tearese, cough) teased me because I kept changing my background even though I hadn't written anything new in a while. School has been really crazy, and I feel like I've been tutoring people in math - that in and of itself is scary. I only have one week left of school and then finals, and then SUMMER. That is, if mother nature decides to figure that out.

Anyway, I've been so busy I haven't been able to keep up to date, and I felt like I didn't have anything to say for a while. But of course, Riley will give me something to write about.

A few months ago I noticed one of his eyes doing something weird. It was like it couldn't follow where it was supposed to go. My sister-in-law noticed it too, and I figured it was time for an appointment with the eye doctor.

I took him yesterday, and of course, it's some rare thing. He actually has two weird things going on with his eyes. He has overacting inferior oblique. Basically his inferior oblique muscles that control his eye are too powerful and he can't fight it all the time, so one eye gives way while the other one stays focused. I thought it was just his left eye that went unfocused, but the doctor showed me and it's actually both eyes. It's mainly cosmetic. It won't hinder him developmentally. They will see us again in four months to see if the condition is any worse. They eventually can do a surgery for it, but it's not 100 percent correctable. The doctor said it's really uncommon. He maybe sees two to three kids a year with this.

The other thing the doctor found was that Riley has retinal coloboma. Basically there was something going on while his eyes were forming in utero and that affected his retina. It's like there is a gap in his retina. They took a picture of his eye at the office - it was the coolest thing to see. Anyway, he's sure it's not a tumor on his retina (like retinal blastoma) but he wants to get a second opinion. We go in again in May when a retinal specialist will be in the doctor's office to check it out.

Ben and I both googled these conditions to find out more. There is mostly just medical jargon on the overacting inferior oblique, but the coloboma had some interesting material. Coloboma is connected to a syndrome called CHARGE that is to believed to be caused by a disruption of fetal growth during the first three months of pregnancy and affecting many different organ systems undergoing development at that time. I had some issues with my pregnancy around 16 weeks, and discovered I had a subchorionic hemorrhage. There can also be urogenital abnormalities associated with CHARGE, like undescended testicles. Remember Riley's inguinal hernias? Not as dramatic as undescended testicles, but they both kind of take the same path.

The doctor also asked if Riley has always had such a prominent forehead, like mine. It's a good thing I don't get offended easily! That got me thinking that this is all connected, because it took nearly three years for his fontanel to completely close. There is still a tiny little soft spot on his head now!

I don't know if he has CHARGE, or what the route would be if he did. He's a little smarty pants and everything else with him is developing well. It's just interesting to see all the relations with this stuff.

Riley has always been the one to do things his way. Melanie and Carter were angel babies, and Riley is balancing them out with all his mischief!