An Urgent Warning From The Surgeon General (AKA: Mother) Of The Goode Family

If you have anyone in your household under the age of 18 who wears contact lenses, take the time to make sure that they are changing lenses in a timely manner.

I know that sounds like a no brainer, but when five out of the seven in your family wears corrective lenses, you tend to think that they know better!

Jim has been in corrective lenses since before we met. I started wearing them in a moment of desperation when Will, at two years of age, got hold of my glasses and broke them while I was exercising. I can't see to drive without glasses, so I decided that I better go ahead and try to conquer my fear of touching my eye ball in an effort not to be visionless at a moment's notice in the future.

I will never forget trying for an hour that first night to take them out. Once I reached the point of crying from my frustration, I called Jim into the bathroom and asked him to help me. He just laughed at me and told me I would have to go to the emergency room to get them out if I couldn't do it on my own. He succeeded in making me mad enough to get them out by myself!

Meagan went straight to contact lenses when she was in high school. She never had the first problem with hers. She was so anti-eyeglasses that she would do anything not to have to wear them!

Kelli and Bri are the only two in our family that do not wear corrective lenses. Brian needed a slight correction in middle school...and though he wanted glasses instead of contact lenses, we overruled his decision due to his participation in basketball and the fact that he was constantly throwing his backpack around and we just knew that he would crush any glasses within a week. His correction is so minor that unless he is participating in a sports activity, he doesn't really need to wear them.

Will was having problems seeing the overhead projector at school last year, so we took him in for a vision test. Sure enough, he needed correction too. Because of his playing football, he decided to go for the contacts instead of glasses. We gave him a long lecture about how to wear them and how to clean them. For the first three of four months we practically had to make him put them in! He didn't want to take the time to put them in every morning...so he just wasn't wearing them. He has the thirty day type, you can wear them for a week before taking them out and cleaning them, but we insisted that he take them out every night like we do. For the next several months, when I changed my lenses, I would ask him if he had changed his.

Well, last Friday I received a phone call from his school nurse that he had been in her office twice that day with eye problems. On his first trip she had him remove his contact from that eye and put drops in for him. Later that afternoon he came back in and the eye was worse. What she thought was a spot on his contact lens turned out to be on his cornea. Of course, it was too late to get him an appointment for Friday evening and our eye doctor would not be back in until Monday.

Rita's daughter, Paige, works for an eye doctor back home and she confirmed what the nurse had suspected...Will had an ulcer on his cornea. I put drops in his eye all weekend that I had gotten for a scratched cornea late last year.

Our eye doctor worked him in first thing this morning. Yes, it was an ulcer. How long had he kept his contacts in this time? 2 months! What?!?! My eyes get dry after 48 hours. I couldn't believe it. The ulcer is pretty deep and is right in the middle of his cornea. He is under a very strict antibiotic routine until tomorrow in hopes that we can keep it from scarring and impairing his vision.

I really thought that after a year of wearing lenses that I didn't have to follow up with him so often. Now I will be putting eye drops in his eye every 15 minutes for 2 hours, followed by every 30 minutes for 2 hours and finally, once every hour -- even through the night. He goes back tomorrow afternoon to see if we can go to once every two hours. At his next annual exam, he will be getting the new thirty day lens that are approved for sleeping.

I admire those people who find it so easy to follow up with routines like this. I struggle with it. I could say that it is because I had five children to follow through with...but I know that in reality, this is just one of my weak areas.

If you have trouble in this area like me, I urge you to learn from my mistake and ask your teenager today, "When is the last time you changed your lenses?" "When is the last time you cleaned them?"

It might save you the need to wake up every hour on the hour at night. I have a feeling my eyes are going to be red tomorrow!