exotropia

Dear Avril,

Your mom and I are a little concerned about your eyes lately - you seem to have a lazy eye, or what is called exotropia. I've only ever seen you do it when you're drinking your juice, or when you're not looking at anything in particular. I think this is what they call 'intermittent', and perhaps not warranting treatment, but i had bad dreams all night long that the problem progressed and affected your life in a real way. worst case: it gets worse and needs surgery. best case: small chance it'll go away on its own. probable case: we have to fight with you to patch your eye before you start school and it slows your learning down. needless to say i'm feeling stressed. i sort of half-joked about future problems with your eyes when you were born given your mom's side of the family all having horrible eyesight, but i didn't imagine this... what's worse than the problem itself is that we have to wait 6 months to see a specialist. oh, well, time will tell.