I’ve been feeling like a bit of an awful mum this last week and wanted some unbiased opinions. My little boy was born with a rare condition which has resulted in very limited to possibly no vision in one eye (we won’t know until he is old enough to tell us). Unfortunately, despite me expressing concerns the day he was born and to various health professionals afterwards, his condition wasn’t picked up on until he was nine weeks old so by the time he had surgery and started therapy (contact lens in/out every day, patching his good eye for 5 hours a day) it was quite difficult.
He is now 15 months old. He throws his head around, screams, scratches and screws his eyes shut when I try to put his lens in our take it out, and it takes me hours each day. As soon as I put his patch on, he pulls it off. With his patch on they think he can likely only see bright lights/colours at best. I really worried that pinning him down every day, sometimes on and off for hours whilst he was so upset could have an impact on him psychologically long term. I work long shifts and am also a single parent so I was finding it really hard to be consistent. I recently made the decision to stop his therapy, which his optician and consultant agreed was the best option as the prognosis was never good anyway.
I just can’t help feeling as though I should have tried harder and just “got on with it” as his mum, to give him the best possible chance of vision in that eye. I joined a support group on Facebook and everyone else seems to manage so much better than me. I worry that if he has an accident or something happens to his other eye, he could become completely blind. On the other hand; he is doing so well developmentally - matching colours, naming some colours, he loves his books, he runs and climbs (everything) and kicks his football, and I feel that this would unlikely be the case if he had been patched for all that time. I’ve barely stopped crying all week, it’s so much pressure to make the right decision but I don’t know what that is. Do you think I have done the right thing by him?