Gabe's Page: All Set

Thursday, March 25, 2010

All Set

Gabe's IEP is all set and ready to help him as he needs it. This plan is speical educaion, but not how one might view special educaion in a negative way. So many view those words as something bad or negative. This is a plan to help Gabe be successful if he should need it. He will not be pulled out of his classroom and sent to the 'special' room, but instead the vision impairment specialist will be in contact monthly with Gabe's teacher for any questions, or needs on how to make things easier for him. Right now at preschool there not be much that needs to be done, but Gabe is the first vision impaired child our school has seen in many many years. Gabe's wonderful teacher for next year already has some great questions and our #1 goal is to make things normal for him! This is scary territory ans yesterday I had to speak up and say, "Hey, some things that have happened over the last couple of weeks were not ok." (Which was very hard for me as I hate confrontation/conflict). So, this is a good thing. Asking for help is ok. And one thing that I keep saying to myself is the comforting words of my Jesus saying over and over , "Do not fear!"

2 comments:

AnonymousMarch 25, 2010 at 7:46 AM
Great job! You have to do what's best for your child even when its hard or uncomfortable for you. We had to do this for our daughter too with her IEP. It wasn't easy to sit an hear all the things she couldn't do but she has made such great progress in 2 months!
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a blog full of weldons.March 31, 2010 at 5:46 PM
i just found your blog and i just had to write and tell you gabe is such a cutie pie!!! i LOVE little kids in glasses (my 3 year old has them :) and your little guy is precious!
my husband and i have 2 boys, and we are in the process of adopting our daughter from china. we are just about ready to schedule our homestudy. i have been so encouraged to see so many families that survived the long and enduring process...sometimes i think i will never see the end of it! but then i remember her...she might not even be born yet, but in my heart i already love her! long to hold her! and continually pray for her future.
thanks for sharing your story! God bless your family!
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About Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a condition in which elevated pressure inside the eye contributes to damage of the optic nerve, which may eventually lead to complete vision loss. There are usually no symptoms early in the disease, but in later stages it can cause loss of peripheral vision, tunnel vision and eventually complete blindness. (Gabe's type of glaucoma-congenital is not like other late (senior) onset glaucoma and is not at this time expected to cause complete blindness).

www.glaucoma.org

www.glaucomafoundation.org

www.glaucomaweb.org

www.nei.nih.gov/health/glaucoma/glaucoma_facts.asp

To understand the basic mechanism let me give you an analogy. Imagine a sink with a water tap. The tap is on and water flows at a constant rate into the sink ; while the drainage hole of the sink is unblocked the sink will not overflow. Consider the eye: fluid (aqueous) is produced at a constant rate by the ciliary processes (see figure 1) which flows around the lens into the anterior chamber and drains into the angle between the cornea (window of the eye) and the iris (colored part of the eye) . This drainage angle is like the drainage hole of the sink; if it becomes blocked then fluid builds up and because the eye is a closed chamber, instead of overflowing the pressure rises within the eye. There are three main consequences of raised intraocular pressure:-

the infant's eye is very elastic and the rise in pressure results in an abnormal increase in the size of the eyeball.
the cornea is normally clear because there is a special layer of cells (endothelium) lining it on the inside which pumps water out of the cornea continuously; raised intraocular pressure affects this pumping action adversely and causes water logging in the cornea which makes the cornea hazy and, in severe cases, opaque.
the main danger of raised pressure within the eye (intraocular pressure) is that it eventually damages the optic nerve irreversibly. The optic nerve is the cable that takes the images the eye receives to the ‘seeing centre' (visual cortex) of the brain; damaged cable means bad or no images, depending on the degree of damage.

In congenital glaucoma there is abnormal development of the drainage angle such that it is blocked by abnormal tissue referred to as Barkans membrane after the man who first suggested its presence in such eyes. In our analogy imagine that someone has placed a film of cellophane over the drainage hole of the sink; now the sink will overflow. Similarly the pressure in the eye will go up.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

All Set

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