It's No Big Deal

At our Buddy's two month check-up, the pediatrician was concerned about his eyes.  They moved constantly.  We had noticed this, but as Buddy is our first, we just thought he would learn to look at things later.  She sent us to a pediatric ophthalmologist (which I apparently did not even know how to spell before writing this).  We had to wait a month to get in.  The whole time, we just thought they would give him glasses, or some eye-strengthening exercises.  We knew he could see, just maybe not as well as others.  It would be NO BIG DEAL.
We were wrong.  The ophthalmologist was really nice, and good at working with an uncooperative baby.  Actually, Buddy wasn't really being difficult, but his eye condition makes it hard to examine him.  After she was done, she said he was nearsighted, but not enough to need glasses at his age.  Then, she showed us a picture of a typical retina, and explained how Buddy's was different.  Instead of pinkish red with a red spot in the middle, his are yellowish with no red spot.  This indicates ocular albinism.  He also has nystagmus (uncontrollable eye movement) and foveal hypoplasia (I still don't know what that is).  She said the only way to know for sure if he has ocular albinism is to go for genetic testing, and it will take 6 months to get an appointment.
We didn't really know what all of this meant, and so the full impact didn't hit until later.  My husband went home and started reading immediately.  That was scary, but informative.  At first, all we saw was all the stuff that he would have trouble with.  We cried.  A lot.  Because it is a BIG DEAL.
It was also really upsetting to find out that this is a genetic problem, usually passed from mothers to sons, which means, if Buddy really does have ocular albinism, he got it from me.  I realize that there is nothing I can do about this, and it isn't really my fault, but hearing this for the first time really hurt.  From our research, we have learned that the mothers usually do not display the traits of the disorder, but  I do actually have trouble with depth perception, which is one of the symptoms of OA.
I started reading some discussion boards and blogs last night and today, and tons of mothers have commented on how much their kids have accomplished, and that has made us feel better.  So, now we wait to see how much of a DEAL this is.