What do you want to hear first?

The bad news is my son does indeed have Keratoconus. The good news is nobody freaked out. I was prepared to hear the diagnosis but I was worried my son would take it hard. Instead he just rolled his eyes and said “This is just my luck.” Then he cracked a joke.

Three different Ophthalmologists looked at his eye and the response was the same every time. Yup, that’s it all right - thinning cornea with a cone shape. No doubt about it. They also kept asking if we had any history of the disease in our family and we kept telling them no. The last doctor, who actually does specialize in Keratoconus, took one look at the eye and asked, “Do you have any Scandinavian blood in you? Anyone in your family from Norway or The Netherlands? My ex-husband, who was also there, looked up and replied, “My grandmother was Norwegian.” According to the doctor, the disease is very prevalent in the Scandinavian countries. One person out of four hundred is affected. Here in the United States the ratio is about one in very two thousand.

We have an appointment next week to have him fitted for a hard contact lense. It will be very specialized and carefully crafted to fit onto his eye and over the bulging cornea. When I asked the doctor how often we will need to come in to check on the progression of the disease, his reply was “Oh, we’re going to be on him like a cheap suit from now on.”

As we were leaving I asked my son, “So, what do you think about all this?” He looked me dead in the eye and said “My life’s path has just taken a different direction.”