Item

Oops, You Were Blind?

Title (Dublin Core)

Oops, You Were Blind?

Description (Dublin Core)

Before he started kindergarten in 2019, I took my son to the ophthalmologist - I knew he didn’t see correctly. My mom is legally blind without lenses, I am -8, so genetics are not in his favor. They honestly thought I was crazy at first because he was barely 5, but they confirmed he was seeing 125 out of his left eye. His eyes were balancing so the plan was to check the next summer. Then COVID hit. There was no way I was taking my kid to Los Angeles in the height of a pandemic. Throughout the year of virtual learning that followed, my son covered one eye, complained his eyes were tired and watched tv from one inch away. Even his piano teacher through his FaceTime lessons saw how close he had to get to his sheet music and politely asked “does he need glasses?” When numbers finally dropped in June, I took him in, knowing he’d need glasses. What I didn’t know is how bad it was. My sweet little guy couldn’t even read the giant E on the eye chart! I guess it’s good none of us realized how bad his vision was or else I might have broke quarantine to help him. As his eye doctor said “-4. That’s quite a prescription for a first pair of glasses.” I’ll always wonder if the year of online learning expedited his decline to seeing 475, but I’m relieved we had a brief break in the high case count to allow us to secure him glasses before the new school year. It makes me wonder what other conditions have gone unchecked for people as they’ve avoided routine appointments due to fears of infection. It’s really a lose lose situation. You avoid the doctor to protect against Covid or you risk Covid to get a check up.

Date (Dublin Core)

June 29, 2021

Creator (Dublin Core)

Kathryn Jue

Contributor (Dublin Core)

Kathryn Jue

Type (Dublin Core)

Photograph

Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)

English Health & Wellness
English Home & Family Life
English Online Learning

Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)

children
parenting
health
check-up
online learning
eyesight
quarantine

Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)

children
glasses
check up
skipped
oops
motherhood
squint

Collection (Dublin Core)

Motherhood
Children

Linked Data (Dublin Core)

Date Submitted (Dublin Core)

08/11/2021

Date Modified (Dublin Core)

09/15/2021
09/20/2021
11/08/2021
04/19/2022

Item sets

This item was submitted on August 11, 2021 by Kathryn Jue using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: http://covid-19archive.org/s/archive

Click here to view the collected data.

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