What A Wonderful World

I see trees of green, red roses too

I see them bloom for me and you

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

I see skies of blue, and clouds of white

The bright blessed day, dark sacred night

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky

Are also on the faces of people going by

I see friends shaking hands, saying "How do you do?"

They're really saying "I love you"

I hear babies crying, I watch them grow

They'll learn much more, than I'll ever know

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

This song has a special place in my heart.  I've loved it for years, but one of my fondest memories is listening to Louis Armstrong croon it while my dad swirled me around on the dance floor on my wedding day.  The words have touched me time and time again, and most recently because of Riley.
 
Green trees.  Red roses.  A rainbow of colors.  These are things many of us probably take for granted.  Of course I don't have a medical degree or any kind of medical background to make the official diagnosis.  What I do have, however, is mother's intuition.  A few months ago, I started noticing that although Riley was able to label most things with the correct color, he always answers "green" when I ask him about something red.  Even if I correct him and tell him something is red, I can immediately show him another red object, and he will still answer "green."  As I began to research the issue, my heart sank as I began to believe that my instinct was right.  Riley is color blind.  One in every one hundred males is affected by color blindness.  The most common form of color blindness is the inability to distinguish between red and green, or blue and yellow, and affects males much more than females.  I didn't want to believe it, so I pulled up a color blindness test for kids and put Riley to the test. 

Riley was able to pick out all three shapes in this picture.

Riley was only able to pick out the circle in this picture.

He was only able to see the square in this picture.

As for this picture, Riley said there's "nothing."



It would appear Riley has what is referred to a "protanopia."  According to Wikipedia, "Dichromacy is a moderately severe color vision defect in which one of the three basic color mechanisms is absent or not functioning. It is hereditary and, in the case of Protanopia or Deuteranopia, sex-linked, affecting predominantly males. . . . Protanopia is a severe type of color vision deficiency caused by the complete absence of red retinal photoreceptors. It is a form of dichromatism in which red appears dark. It is hereditary, sex-linked, and present in 1% of males."  To put it in simpler terms:

The colors of the rainbow as viewed by a person with no color vision deficiencies.

The colors of the rainbow as viewed by a person with protanopia.

Reading the words didn't have as much affect on me as seeing these pictures.  I can't imagine a world where everything was so blah.  Even though there's no cure or easy fix, I contacted Riley's doctor to see if there was any reason to bring him in for an official diagnosis.  Her response was that they don't usually test kids for color blindness until they're four, but I can discuss it more with her at his three year checkup.  In the meantime, we've been quizzing Riley on his colors.  I think he's starting to recognize the different shades to mean different colors.  He'll now tell you Elmo is red instead of green.  However, he'll also tell you a pale shade of green is red.  It's obviously a work in progress.  And we have YEARS ahead of us for him to figure out the traffic signals.  And fortunately, as Grandma pointed out, if this is the worst disability in our extensive family, we should consider ourselves blessed.  It truly is a wonderful world.