362: Status Update: Vision

 

Ed’s birthday party theme this year was *Despicable Me*

Now that I’m 3 years post injury I’m going to take a few days to do a series on Status Updates. The first update is vision.

To recap, I was in Vision Therapy for 9 months. There is a diversity of opinions regarding VT’s efficacy. I am squarely in the camp of: I ❤ VT and saw measurable improvement bc I did it. But do your own research and choose what’s right for you – here’s a link: www.VisionHelp.org

149. Why I Choose Therapy

 

Two of the my favorite reasons I know I improved (other than my test scores) are:

1) Ai Ai told me that summer my eyes point in the same direction more often than they used to even before I got sick. (I have a “lazy” eye on the left, and it often does whatever it wants.)

2) The first time I saw my neurologist 2-3 months after starting VT she interrupted my litany of symptom reporting to say, Ummm…you’re using your eyes in a COMPLETELY different way. Normal people will kind of look around the room while conversing. I was unable to do this prior to VT. While I was talking to her she felt compelled to verbally note the change since it was so marked. PS. When I first floated the idea of trying VT with her she was not overly optimistic. I did it anyway :).

 

But my favorite reason for loving VT is that it’s easier to read. When we did the initial goal-setting process I told them, I don’t want to read, I need to read. Everything I’m trained for requires reading. When I discovered that I knew how to use my eyes better and could manage a (huge print on the Kindle app) book I was SOOOO excited. I have always loved reading – that is how I learned to write.

That said, I still can’t read normally. I prefer to listen to the Bible and other books whenever I can, but I know the visual hygiene tricks to manage better when I need to digest information through the eye gate. I routinely skip lines when trying to read music so I avoid it when I can, unless I’m playing for the congregation at church. If you play from the hymnal they can’t say you’re playing too high or low – hey, it’s what in the book!

150. Back to “Normal”

 

I am grateful for the measure of improvement I’ve seen, though. It’s definitely settled down since I first woke up and was convinced I was on a merry-go-round bc the room was spinning – a full rotation at top speed. Nowadays things still move if I’m tired or if I turn my head too quickly, so I do my best to avoid sudden motions etc.  It is also difficult for me to watch a high speed car chase on TV or a person moving fast in real life.  For example, when Trainer D decided that it was time to ramp up our workouts (his standard practice is to do this to clients at the 5-6 month mark) he started moving at warp speed.  It kind of makes me nauseous since it seems he’s like on a permanent fast forward mode, but who am I to argue with his data-based training methods?  Actually, if anyone would try to argue it would be me, but he’s the one with the experience so fine – we’ll do this his way.    Timmy was moving in a similar manner a couple Saturdays ago when he was trying to get out the door for Josh’s baseball game.  The progression of getting-ready-maneuvers was so relentlessly rapid I had to look away.

I still think the car is moving sometimes when we’re at a complete stop, so that’s not great – but I’m learning to trust my chauffers more since I know my eyes give me weird feedback sometimes. My left eyelid also twitches (it did it a lot a couple months ago, but it’s better now) with fatigue. But I’ve never mentioned it bc it’s a low-priority symptom in the grand scheme of things. I’ve learned how to manage these things more effectively as time has worn on and my Recovery progressed.

I am definitely not as observant now since I use my eyes differently. I will often misread signage or texts that come to my phone, which is problematic since the texts I receive often communicate information relevant to my life. Except the slew of “Happy Mother’s Day texts I received recently from people who had the wrong number (that happens to me a lot).

160. Welcome to my World

 

Another favorite example is when I made a carrot cake smoothie a couple months ago at home in my trusty Vitamix. I was so proud of my kitchen mobility – I peeled the carrot and cut it into chunks with my serrated spatula and threw away the peelings. A minute later Mommy came by and stood at the trashcan laughing. It took me 30 more seconds to visually ascertain what was so funny: There was my little paper towel of carrot peelings neatly rolled up and sitting ½ a foot from the trash can.

Oops, my bad. I’m so glad Mommy can laugh about these things. You’d think she’d be tired of picking up after me by now – but no, she is a very forbearing woman. Thanks, Mom!