Vision Therapy

Three years ago, I went to my first Vision Therapy appointment with “Dr. Magic” AKA Tod Davis of Virginia Vision Therapy. 

Well, actually, he is the Optometrist, and several of the people working for him are the vision therapists. I worked with A. She is fantastic. I miss her.

She was so kind and patient with me. I was going through some of the worst, hardest things in my life at that point. I often showed up, crying and crying and feeling unsafe. 

She would sit me down in a chair and help me ground myself under a weighted blanket. And be so gentle, listening to me cry and maybe talk, maybe be unable to talk. And I would gradually realize I was safe with her. I am so grateful for professionals who make a safe place for the people they are working with. 

The weighted blanket draped over my shoulders would help weigh me down so that I couldn’t dissociate. She would also strap 1 lb weights on my ankles, also to weigh me down. 

My memory says she was working on my propreoception - helping me know where I am in space. I wasn’t floating up by the ceiling, I wasn’t existing somewhere in the past. She was helping me realize I was right there - seated in a chair at the Vision Therapy office. 

I am so grateful to Dr. Tod Davis for diagnosing my eyes correctly. I had gone to eye doctors for about 40 years by the time I found him. I had told numerous eye doctors, “my eyes don’t work together.” They just dismissed it. And gave me eye glasses the same way every other eye doctor does. 

Dr. Davis tested me to see if I could see in 3D, and determined that I couldn’t. He also diagnosed me with lack of convergence, double-vision and many other things. He pointed out that reading is difficult for me. I didn’t know that - because I had, for 40 years, done tricks to make reading a bit easier for me - covering up words, closing 1 eye, squinting with my other eye… 

Now I know - I have trouble reading. 

Anyway, 3 years ago is when I started this vision therapy journey and I am so grateful to have come quite a ways with my own vision. 

I spent money sending my son to vision therapy. He wasn’t really ever able to articulate what he did in vision therapy to me. He has trouble articulating day-to-day things. I had hoped to blog more about his journey, but I wasn’t able to learn from him what they worked on very much. 

His journey is now over with them. Being younger, they were able to find a lot more success with molding his brain to learn new ways to use his eyes than they were able to with me. 

I had been hoping, once he was done going, that I would be able to resume going for me. I can’t afford it. 

I have stopped practicing the at-home things like the bead on a string that helps me look at something close to my eyes (like a bead) and work on the muscle that crosses our eyes. It’s a great eye muscle exercise. 

I feel like my ADHD gets in the way of me doing *anything* every single day. Story of my life - I am not consistent. Thank you, ADHD. 

I am also grateful to my ADHD, by the way, because it enables me to have moments when I can hyper-focus and do things like write a whole book in a relatively short period of time. 

Speaking of which, I am writing a whole new book. It’s on a topic that a lot of people may not feel comfortable reading, but if they actually sit down and read my book, they will walk away realizing it’s not actually the uncomfortable topic they have been taught it was, their whole life. 

Thank you for reading my blog. 

By the way, I have never asked my blog readers to buy stuff from me. I did start this blog hoping I could monetize it at some point. I have done everything I can to monetize this blog, and it won’t. I write and write and get discouraged, and write more later. 

The way you can help me is by Leaving a Comment. 

Seriously. Leaving a Comment on my blog posts would seriously help me towards my goal of monetizing my blog. 

I approached an eyeglasses maker about them paying me if I would write about their eyeglasses and they basically told me “no.” If, however, I had comments on this blog, showing I actually have readers who engage with my blog, that would help me in the future when I approach other companies about paying me to blog. 

Thank you for considering this & leaving a comment. 

Clouds

 Last night, I was walking my dogs, and I saw a gorgeous sunset. 

It went from far off in the distance (orange lit small, closely spaced clouds) to over my head, where it was white puffy clouds, still close together.

I followed the orange clouds from the distance to see them all the way up and over my head. They were so beautiful, I had to stand and enjoy all of them. 

Looking overhead, I saw these clouds:  

The image is a light cyan blue sky with white puffy clouds. 

I stood there, looking overhead at these clouds, and it was amazing - they were in 3D to me. 

I have never seen clouds as “near me.” They have always looked like a postcard image to me - 2 dimensional. 

These clouds? They looked about twice as far away as the telephone pole’s top that I was standing next to.

I wished I had a person right there, next to me, who could have validated that the clouds were close and that I was in fact, seeing them in 3D. No one was around me, and I didn’t want to look away and figure out how to find someone (a stranger) to look up and validate my weird eye issues. It would have been super weird to have to explain all my eye issues or even some of them, to get them to then validate what I was looking at. 

Anyway, It was an amazing sight for me. And I stood there, hoping my brain was making new connections : we can see clouds and perceive how far away they are!

This sighting and 3D view for me helped me understand something about my vision: it’s possible I can see 3D when something is very large. I saw the tree in 3D when driving (see a previous post about this), when it was in front of a mountain. And now I saw the clouds in 3D - it was like they were coming towards me, away from the blue of the sky behind them - like things come towards me in a 3D movie with those special glasses on. (That’s the only way I had ever seen 3D before - when I was wearing special glasses that make things forcibly pop towards you. 

Now I am wondering if I should go to more 3D movies. I am thinking I should! I feel like I remember seeing Nemo and Dory in 3D, maybe it was at a ride at either Walt Disney World or Disneyland. That’s probably where I saw 3D Nemo - at a ride at a Disney park. What 3D movies do you think are worth it?

I sometimes wonder if folks who can see in 3D read my posts and close 1 eye to look ahead of them and not see in 3D, and wonder what it’s like not to have something in their life every day, that comes so naturally to them. Let me know. I look forward to your comments. 

Please forgive the odd formatting of this post. I just don’t have the energy to fix it right now. 

3D Moment

I live in a mountainous region (the Shenandoah Mountains, part of the Appalacean Mountain range in central Virginia.). 

I was driving on a road, and the sun was in my eyes. I must have mentioned before on this blog somewhere how sensitive my eyes are to light. I probaby mentioned it in one of my Dissociation posts. My eye doctor, Dr. Magic AKA Dr. Tod Davis of Virginia Vision Therapy liks the two. He says they are commonly linked -- dissociaiton and sensitivity to light. 

I already had on my prescription sunglasses. I added on orange clip-ons from Rainbow OPTX. 

I put them on, and felt my eyes open up. I wasn't being bombarded from the sun so strongly, and felt my eyes rest. 

Soon after, I was driving towards a perfect round tree on the right side of the road, and beyond the tree, I could see the mountains in the distance. 

Now, normally, it looks like a postcard to me. It's all flat. I know the mountain is beyond the  tree becasue 1) that's how it is, there is road going from in front of me, next to the tree, and getting smaller and smaller, eventually looks like it's running into the mountain. 2) the tree is covering part of the mountain. The mountain isn't hiding the tree. 

When my eyes were able to rest, and it was a clear, sunny day, I had a brief moment, driving towards that tree, where I saw the tree in 3D - popping closer to me than the mountains. 

I love the brief moments when I get to see something in 3D! The only time I consistently see in 3D is when I am in a 3D theater, wearing those special glasses. 

The rest of my drive and for drives in the future, I was trying to find a tree and mountains way off in the distance, so I could see the tree standing out , towards me, the way it did that one time. But, I only saw it the one time. 

I look forward to the time (and I have hope that this will happen some day) when my brain makes some adjustments and connections and can see in 3D consistently. 

Oh, the things the majority of folks out there take for granted. To me, seeing in 3D is magical. I'd love to see that magic a whole lot more in my life. 

My son is driving

My older son has just started taking driving lessons. I have been remembering when I was his age, learning to drive. 

I remember being about 16 or so, and I had a babysitter for like a week or two when my parents were out of town. She was a friend of the family. Maybe in her young 20s or so. 

We were driving down a main drag in my large neighborhood, toward a traffic light. And no one was around. So she had me sit in the drivers seat and drive us maybe 1 1/2 blocks to the traffic light. At most, it was 3 blocks. 

I remember getting in the car, having never driven before, and saying “I feel like I am going to hit those cars!” (The ones parked on the right side of the road.) she told me, “you won’t”

And I drove us those miniscule blocks. It was so weird to me. 

Later, in driving class, I learned to gage where cars were to the right of me, by centering them on the hood. Like, if their left side is at the half point of the hood, then I won’t hit them. 

Do you all measure cars this way? I don’t know if I am adapting to my 2D vision by doing this, or if this is how everyone gages where cars are. 

I am not sure if I am in a position to teach my son to drive. Thus - him going to driving school. A gal picks him up and he drives her around. I saw her today and she said, “he needs to practice!” His dad has been driving with him, or rather, our son is driving his dad around in large parking lots. 

My parents didn’t want to teach me to drive, because they didn’t want a ton of arguments with me. That’s what they said at the time anyway. 

But now I am in the position they were in - my oldest is learning to drive. He has normal vision, as far as I know. And I don’t. 

Maybe as he gets better from the school and working with his dad, maybe then I will feel ok going with him. 

Ever since I became a parent, one of my big goals has been to “not screw up my kids.” I don’t want to screw him up by teaching him to drive since I may have things I have adapted to because of my vision, and he doesn’t necessarily. 

I hope everyone has a fantastic last week of December! 

Reading space differently

My vision therapist has been so helpful and kind. She is super creative and patient. I really like her and appreciate her. 

She learned early on during our therapy that I need extra kind kid gloves to be treated with. I have had so many concussions and my life is in a rough patch, and she just gives me kindness and gentleness with my eyes. Above all, she wants me to feel SAFE at therapy. She has worked very hard to make sure I feel safe. And I do feel safe at therapy!

She has told me myriad times that we can only heal when we feel safe. I am so grateful she taught me that. It makes so much sense. 

One time, which I wrote about in the 3 part blog post, "My life changed for 24 hours," I wrote that I had a different therapist as a substitute one week. He had me doing something called "the Infinity Walk." Walking in an infinity sign around tall traffic cones, as I looked at a 3D image. I exited that walk and for the first time ever, saw in 3D. It was so remarkable! I got home and felt like the ceiling was closing in on me. It was scary and I didn't feel safe in my own home. 

It was then that I saw and appreciated how much my regular vision therapist works so hard to have me make gradual, safe shifts in my vision. I told her this then, and I told her again at my recent appointment with her. 

In the last month, or maybe the last 3 months (it has been so gradual that it's hard to say when it started), my ceilings have definitely started looking closer. I no longer hover my hand over a nearby wall when I am walking in a narrow space. I think that's part of what is called "proprioception." If I am getting my vocabulary words correct, that means "awareness of space." I have become more aware of where I am in space. This is excellent!

I noticed this last week that once again, I am parking better. This is HUGE for me. I am straight in the spot, not diagonal, and I am parked at a more reasonable distance from the white line in front of me. 

I told all of this to my vision therapist at my most recent appointment. She said that I am reading space differently! She was having me touch beads and look at them, and move them. I was able to reach out and touch the beads the first try, instead of reaching out and having to adjust where my fingers were so that I could touch the bead. 

In other. words, it is possible that I am starting to very gradually see things in 3D. Things don't look that different to me than they did my whole life. But I think that maybe I am starting to get a bit of that 3D perception, 3D vision. I would love to give you more analytical folks a number so you can understand what I still don't have. So I am going to say that I feel like I probably have between 3% and 10% 3D now. Things are not at all like that post when I said, "my life changed for 24 hours." But something has shifted and I am seeing space better. I have more 3D now, apparently, than I have ever had before. This is wonderful!

By the way, I have been going to vision therapy for over a year now. The kids generally need to go for 12 weeks or so. And most folks don't go for more than 3 sets of the 12 week sessions. I am about to start what will be my last set of 12 week sessions. They said they won't let me work beyond that. I am not sure why. So I may never achieve the full 3D that normal people with healthy, normal eyesight have. But I look forward to more improvements during my next sessions and in the weeks between. 

Constellations in the sky

Do we see constellations in the sky in 3D?

The stars are up there in 3 dimensions (or more?) But don't we see them, with our naked eyes, in 2 dimensions?

I wonder if most people see the space and distance between stars? Maybe if they use binoculars? I wonder if we all see the stars the same way?

Except some people might be like Vincent Van Gogh, and see streaks and floaters and other beautiful things, so the stars take on the appearance of singing, visually. (I beg that you will indulge me with my creative words on this matter; after all, we are talking about Vincent Van Gogh's vision.)

I love the constellations. I wonder if they will become more beautiful to me than ever before, as the trees did, that one time, for 24 hours.

My World Changed for 24 Hours - Part 4

When I got home and had a chance to just lie down in my bed and stare up at the ceiling, my ceiling was also 3D. 

Now, our ceilings have that 1970s popcorn look to them. I pretend they look like daisies so I don't see it as ugly like I would if it was just the stipple effect with no pattern.

Well, so usually, the ceiling looks like it's well above my head. I guess we have 8 feet ceilings, though we haven't measured them. My 6 feet tall kids can reach them, but I can't. So I am guessing they are about 8 feet tall ceilings.

Usually, I know a ceiling is there but I don't pay much attention to it.

This whole idea reminds me of a scene in the movie "Blast from the Past" with Alicia Silverstone and Brendan Fraser. 

[Photo of Eve (Alicia Silverstone) and Adam (Brendan Fraser) sitting on a couch, sipping champagne and eating sushi) from https://bombreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/blast-from-past.jpg]

Brendan Fraser plays a character named "Adam" in the movie, and he has just shown up at Alicia's (Eve's) house. Adam is in a room with Eve's roommate, Troy. Adam looks up at the ceiling and tells Troy, "You have nice ceilings."

Troy says, "You like ceilings?" and has a perplexed look on his face.

Adam says, "Not particularly." He looks happy as he says it. It is just an amusing little scene in the movie. If you haven't seen that movie, see it. It's such a fun movie.

Back to my own ceilings. ... Well, my bed is standard height. I looked up at the ceiling and I felt like it was 3 feet away from me. I felt as if the ceiling was going to crush me. It was a bizarre feeling: to have cognitive dissonance about my ceiling.

Cognitive dissonance is something that means "two opposite thoughts held at the same time in your head." I know that the ceiling won't crush me. I know it's not falling. I know it's not just 3 feet away from me. But it looks like it's falling on me and that if I stand up, I will bump my head on it.

It was scary, and part of me said that I wanted to move RIGHT THEN - to a place with cathedral ceilings. It's very bizarre when you feel like your home is going to crush you.

Maybe I am in a movie kind of mood, but now I am remembering the scene from Star Wars: A New Hope, when the walls of the trash compactor threaten the heros of the movie.

https://youtu.be/7U3Oti2L8S4

I tried rolling over, I tried looking at a farther part of the ceiling. The whole thing was just really weird and a bit unnerving. I wasn't a fan.

Eventually, I went to sleep.

I woke up the next morning and could still see in 3D!

I took dogs on walks and enjoyed the new spring blossoms on the trees. It was interesting knowing when to dodge tree limbs rather than walk right into them, like I usually have in the past. I was grateful for that new skill!

About mid-afternoon, my eyes got very tired and felt like the muscles had been working too hard, and my eyes slipped back to normal. I was back to seeing the way I normally see.

The next day, I tried aligning my eyes again, to see if I could do the 3D thing again. The muscles in my eyes hurt when I tried. They had been overworked and needed a rest.

I thought perhaps that the next week at Vision Therapy, we would do the same thing and I would be able to get the magic 3D vision back, but we didn't.

My usual therapist, A, was there, and she is so gentle and calm with me. Her entire objective with me is to help me feel safe. She is exceptionally good at it. She is progressing slowly with me. It occurred to me that I just wasn't ready yet to see in 3D, since it made me feel like my house was crushing me.

Ever since seeing 3D, I have noticed that ceilings now have an arc look to them. They used to be a straight line to me, left to right. But now the ceiling line above me, in front of me (where it meets the wall right in front of me) is raised in a gentle arc. If I look to the left or the right, the arc goes down. The part where the ceiling has a corner on the left, the ceiling arcs down to the left. The part where the ceiling has a corner on the right, the ceiling arcs down to the right.

I asked a friend if this is what they see, too. "Do ceilings have an arc look to them? Or do they just look straight?" and my friend said that perhaps I am just perceiving space differently now. I think that's completely true. I am definitely perceiving space differently now.

Case in point - I can now park my car straight. Just in time to not be driving anywhere anymore thanks to Covid-19. I guess that's what "they" call "irony." Who? I don't know. Just "they."

It's true - a few weeks ago I went on one of my last grocery shopping trips before quarantining myself for what I think is now 6 weeks or more. (I have lost track.) And I got out of the car. I felt like perhaps my car was in the space differently, so I walked around my car and looked at it from all the angles.

This was the first time I have noticed that I parked myself perfectly in a parking spot. I wasn't 4 feet from the front, and I wasn't crooked from the side. A first! I am 40+ years old (creeping up on 50) and I have now parked straight maybe 3 times total.

I am definitely starting to perceive space in new ways.

My World Changed for 24 Hours - Part 3

[A cartoon photo courtesy of the Bitmoji app, of Jodi with short blonde hair and a floral shorts and tank top outfit on, lounging underneath a large daisy.] 

Mother Nature looks like she is in 3D!

I guess life got in the way again and I never got around to publishing part 3 to the "My World Changed for 24 Hours" set of blog posts.

So, here it is. Thank you for understanding that it's a few weeks late. Maybe in a week or two, I will go back and fix the date .... if I remember. To put it where it belongs (that blank week where nothing got published.)

Well, driving home from Vision Therapy the day I saw in 3D for the first time was quite an experience. Before I started driving, though, I think I sat in my car for about 2 hours. I just needed to get a little used to what my eyes were seeing before I could get on the road and start driving.

I sat and stared at the trees in front of my car, and the building under construction with its blue siding, across the way.

It reminded me of the first time I got glasses - I could see every leaf on the trees across the street from my house. I could make out every grass blade. It's quite a thing when your whole world is blurry and that's all you know. Then, one day, you get a pair of glasses & you can make out the leaves on trees!

This was kind of like that. Only, it was my EYES doing the work and not my glasses.

I could make out every tree branch and how they were in relation to me. "That one veers off to the left, that one veers off to the right. That one is coming right at me! Woah - it really is!"

I finally decided it was probably time to drive home, so I cautiously drove. It was one of those days when it probably would have been a better idea to have someone drive me. But I am not blessed to have someone who can drive me the 40 minutes or so each way to vision therapy. Oh, well.

I knew that if anything came in front of me, I would be more sensitive to it, rather than less sensitive, because everything looked closer than it usually does.

I drove on the side street then a Main Street and merged onto a highway to get home. There is always traffic on that highway, and I just stayed in the right lane. There is always construction and a LOT of cars on that highway, so we weren't going particularly fast. Whew!

At one point, I got off the highway and went to a store. I think Walmart to see if they had a quilt I have been needing. Driving through the parking lot on the way to Walmart, no one was near me. No one behind me, nothing. Then a car pulled in front of me and I slowed down to let it cross.

The car that came out of nowhere behind me honked. I looked again at the car in front of me. I had thought it was maybe 12 feet in front of me. I had completely misjudged it. (I may or may not have mentioned it on this blog, but I cannot measure space at all. Someone will say, "oh, it's about 100 yards that way." or they might say, "it's a quarter of a mile up the road." I can't tell that sort of thing by looking. I can't. I can't see depth and I can't estimate distance. There are things we aren't good at in life. It doesn't make us weak or a bad person. It' just something we can't do. I can't measure distance. At all.

Well, the car I had paused to let drive in front of me was not the 12 feet or so in front of me like I thought s/he was. It was probably 90 feet in front of me.

No wonder the car that came out of no where from behind me honked. Haha!

I pulled forward gradually and cautiously and the car behind me turned in to another lane to drive toward the store. Fine by me.

Well, later that night, I took a dog for a walk. It's my job. I walk dogs for folks who can't walk their dog, for whatever reason.

I picked up the dog like usual and we went for a little late-night stroll. We walked around his cul-de-sac. I was marveling at the trees in his block. They were amazing and so beautiful! I felt like I had never seen trees before!! I couldn't stop staring at these trees.

Now, I am a tree planter. I have had the privilege of planting trees all over Washington, DC with a fine organization called Casey Trees. www.caseytrees.org

The first tree I got to plant was by the ape enclosure area at Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, DC. The group I planted that tree with decided we would name it "Jane," after Jane Goodall. I visit that tree every time I visit the zoo. I love trees.

But I felt as if I had never seen a tree before this night, walking this dog. They were truly magical. The dog was so patient with me as I marveled at all the beauty surrounding us. He and I have spent countless afternoons and evenings standing next to those same trees, and yet I acted as if I had never seen them before. It really was quite astonishing.

I feel like this blog post is also getting to be too long, so I will need to go to Part 4 with this topic. I haven't even mentioned at all what it was like to enter my own house and look around, with this newfound 3D eyesight.

See you all next week. Stay home. Stay safe. Wear a mask - cotton + flannel. Wear gloves. Wash them as if they were your hands. Wash your hands too.

My life changed for 24 hours - Part 2

Last week, I wrote about wearing stronger Prism glasses. I wrote about how the glasses distort the room. I wrote about how my brain is starting to trust what my eyes see.

I want to quickly mention that my usual Vision Therapist, A, has had me hold a stick - maybe like a bamboo rain stick - and has changed the prism glasses on me and asked me, "does it feel straight or curved?" She has done this for weeks now.

Each time my brain, my eyes and my brain again FIGHT to figure out the answer. I know it's straight. Or do I? Have I ever seen this particular stick with my glasses off? Is it straight? I don't know!

I touch it and wonder. I always answer, "I don't know." I think one time I said, "I think it's curved." And she was so happy about that, but didn't elaborate. Like I said, I think they do things here to help me but don't always want to tell me exactly what they're doing - so the help will flow out organically and on its own timeline, rather than trying to force results by "cheating" and telling me what I'm supposed to think and feel about something.

Well, so after I completely walked across the room (as told in the previous blog post) twice, with the distortion glasses on, my vision therapist, C, put 3D glasses on me. Over my own pair of glasses. He put two traffic cones on the floor - one on either side of me. These are standard size, standard height, traffic cones.

[A photo of 2 orange and white striped traffic cones against a white background.]

In front of me, he put a white pole with a magnet holding up a 3D image of a donut shape.

[A slightly 3D photo of a wide circle that has wide blue stripes with narrow white stripes.]

The donut shape is actually printed on two translucent sheets of plastic. The two sheets of plastic can be widened and narrowed, to change how the 3D image of the donut appears. Is it behind the cards? Is it in front of the cards? Is it 3 feet from you? Is it 12 feet from you? It's a nifty piece of simple technology to be able to create this illusion.

My task was to look at this 3D donut (which takes me a few moments - I have to move my eyeballs until I can discern the 3D image, instead of 2 images, side by side... it takes me a few moments, but I can do it. it's possible that I can do this more quickly now than when I first started going to therapy! Very exciting!)

Well, then I was to keep looking at the donut and walk to my left, around the cone to my left, and circle it, then walk to the other cone (originally to my right), around it the other way. Essentially, my feet were making an infinity symbol around the traffic cones.

My task was to continue walking in this fashion, around the cones, as I continued to stare at the 3D donut vision.

I did this a bunch of times -- walking between and around the cones, staring at the donut, keeping it as a 3D image in view.

After a bit of time, my vision therapist said, "You're doing a LOT of work here." Funny, it didn't actually FEEL like a lot of work.

But he explained to me that the view of the 3D image kept changing in perspective to where I was. I had to hold it as a 3D image - which meant that my eyes were keeping focused on a moving target, and continuing to work together as the target moved, and keep it as a 3D image. Wow! He was right! My eyes WERE doing a lot of work!

He decided, "that's probably enough work for today." I swear these vision therapists are trained to see when their client / patient is tired and worn down from work. I don't usually feel worn down, but they are kind and tell me to take breaks. They can see I am tired.

He and I went and sat down at the table to close out my session.

I looked at him. He was writing notes and then he looked at me.

I realized - this man was sitting across a table from me, maybe 3 feet away from me. And - WOAH:

The WALL behind him was FAR BEHIND HIM!

This was a MIRACLE for me. I was seeing in 3D for the first time ever in my whole life. I could see the negative space as it looked like air, in between him and the wall behind him.

I know I am repeating myself here - but - It was a miracle!

I told him: "I can see you, so close to me, and that wall behind you is REALLY FAR behind you!"

The surprise on my face was probably very clear, and he knew that I was seeing in 3D for the first time. He felt so close to me, I felt like I had to scoot my chair back. My personal space felt invaded, though I have sat across that table from him and from other vision therapists before.

WOW. I scooted back my chair and he and I just continued to gently look at each other. I looked at the wall behind him, the window in the wall. I looked at the other vision therapist, D, behind vision therapist C. I mean, it was super crazy.

He told me to be gentle with myself as I walked out of the room. he told me to take my time before I walked to my car. He told me to be careful before I got in the car to drive home. "Take your time, just be careful."

I walked to the waiting room. The hallway was LONG. The ceiling was CLOSE. I finally got to the busier than usual waiting room. A lot was going on. Dr. Davis was meeting a new patient - a little girl. He is so funny. He asked her, "did you bring both of your eyeballs with you today?" And she giggled and hugged him.

Another vision therapist, M, was explaining something to the parent of a teen boy who I often see in vision therapy with me. I tried what she said and it was crazy cool. I will type THAT in another post ....

I sat there and stared at the ceiling, the walls, the people in the room. There was a military man in uniform there. I looked at his boots. Everything was new and in 3D for me. I was in complete shock. This was a complete shock to my system.

I couldn't take the (very nice) ruckus in the waiting room anymore, so I gently got up from my chair and went out the front door. There are trees outside and holy cow, they had limbs coming towards me! I could see the parking lot, the tree across the parking lot, and the building way off in the distance. It was all in 3D.

I walked so slowly to my car. Everything was different. My entire world had changed!

Driving home was interesting. I kept slowing down for things. I thought they were way closer to me than they actually were. It reminded me how I have been parking 3 feet farther away from where I intend to park. My eyes must have already been starting to make this leap to 3D vision, but it was subtle and I didn't see it clearly until after this exercise with the traffic cones.

There is so much I want to share and type, and yet, the blog posts are too long already.

I may have to do a part 3 to this blog post. My whole world changed for nearly 24 hours, and I have only shared about an hour of it with you.

Thank you for reading my blog. Please leave me some comments. I love comments and feedback.

I haven't yet figured out why the comments turn off after a few weeks on the blog. I want them to always work, but I haven't figured that out yet. I'll get there. To misquote Bob Dylan: "My world, it is a'changing."

My life changed for 24 hours - Part 1

I was at vision therapy, doing a lot of exercises with a substitute vision therapist, C.

He had me doing exercises that vision therapist, A, does with me weekly. She puts prism glasses on my eyes.

[A photo of 2 pairs of black-framed Prism Glasses sitting side by side on a white surface; the glasses are very thick on one side and have normal thickness on the other side.] 

[Photo from the website: https://www.optometrytimes.com/view/vision-therapy-top-10-must-have-list]

The spheres on the glasses rotate a full 360 degrees. And can be dialed in to a number on the top. I haven't studied what A does with it each time, But she has me put them on, walk around, do tasks, and then I take them off. She adjusts the dial / rotates the lenses to a different number, and has me do maybe the same task, maybe a different task.

Every time these glasses get put on me, the vision therapist says to me: "what changed?" Sometimes I say the room is tilting to the left. Sometimes, it tilts to the right. Sometimes the room looks like a giant smile, other times it looks like a giant frown. Sometimes it looks all squished - like a hall of mirrors at a carnival. The room changes drastically with prisms distorting the light. It's bizarre.

We do this probably for 15-20 minutes of each of my vision therapy visits.

Some of the prism glasses aren't as thick. I think those are sort of a beginner set of glasses. I think the point of those was to make sure I wouldn't get nauseous with the glasses changing what I see, so they were a weaker version.

Recently, she has put a very thick pair on me, and dialed them around to different settings. She is gradually getting me used to seeing things differently, and keeping me from getting nauseous while doing it! She is magic!!

Well, I had a substitute vision therapist at a recent appointment. And he put on the fat prism glasses on my face. He rotated them so that the room was completely squished on the right side! It was crazy!

I was walking with a wide berth to the right of me. I think the right of me was about 10 feet of room. But it looked like it was maybe 6 inches. I didn't want to run in to anything as I walked across the room (that was my task), so I went as far left as I felt I could go and not bother other patients and therapists in the room, and still not stub my toe on things or bump into the table or the file cabinet, and such. It was quite wonky.

I got to the other side of the room. I looked at a plant and the window at the edge of the room. I know the middle of the window is a straight metal piece. But the glasses made it look like a curved letter "C." My vision therapist had me trace the metal shape with my hand. "Does it feel curved?" I decided that it did feel curved. He said, "great! That means your brain is starting to trust what your eyes see!" It's bizarre when you know something is straight: up and down. Perpendicular to the floor. But it looks like a left-handed letter "C." and when you touch it, and follow the lines, you think your hand is curving like the letter "C" to follow the curve you're looking at. The whole thing feels psychedelic.

He took off the glasses and rotated them the other way. Now, the same side of the room was still just as squished, but I was approaching it from the other angle. So weird. Now it was the side of the room to the left of me. But previously, I had walked with that side of the room to the right of me. It was still squished and I gave it a wide berth.

After doing these things, he had me doing an exercise. I have decided this blog post is just about long enough, so I will share that exercise in the next blog post. Please look for it, because my brain and my eyes did something so remarkable, that I want to share it in its own post.

I can't wait for you to read next week's blog post! What happened for me was very exciting.

3 Dimensions

So, I have mentioned here before that I see in 2 dimensions. My eyes have never worked together, for as long as I can remember. I flicker between them very rapidly. As a result, I take in at least twice the information that everyone else takes in, and my brain has to make sense of it all.

When I am tired, I close one eye. When I am out in the sunlight, I close one eye. That probably has to do with my sensitivity to light, also (which my vision therapist is ALSO working on).

Well, so I remember years ago, probably in 1984, seeing Vincent Van Gogh's paintings of his room and the cafe, and I thought to myself: "of COURSE he painted them that way, that's how he saw them." Because that's how I see things.

Image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago's website: https://www.artic.edu

"Café Terrace at Night," 1888 Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

It turns out other people look at me in constant perplexity and cannot understand what I mean when I say that I see things in 2 dimensions.

You know how when you go to the movies, and you see a nice movie. Let's say: Star Wars. It has ships and motion and people talking. And it's all on a flat screen. That's how I see things.

[Image of Darth Vader talking with Princess Leah is from Pinterest. It's the only one that I could find to share.]

Then you can go to the exact same movie, and wear those 3D glasses, and suddenly, those ships are flying toward you. Maybe Darth Vader and Princess Lea are talking and they are closer to you than the background is. This is how I feel like the rest of the world must see things.

I don't see in 3D unless I am wearing special glasses, like the ones given in the movie theater. Those glasses have a certain way of bending light and such, to force a fake 3D image. They force your eyes to take in images as a 3D image, even though it's actually flat.

Anyway, so several weeks ago, I was sitting on my toilet (yes, I do that sometimes, don't make a big deal out of it), and I looked at the orange towel that one of my boys had haphazardly hung up on the rack. I stared at it. I realized it looked 3D to me. I could see the part that was folded and sticking out toward me - as if it was 3D.

I've NEVER seen 3D before that with my own eyes. I just wanted to sit there and stare at the stupid towel. Sloppily hung.

That week, I went in and told my vision therapist, A, about the towel. She was thrilled for me! She loves hearing my progress. She is working so hard with various kinds of prism glasses (I have previously typed this as prizm with a "z" and I don't have the energy to go back and fix my posts, but I have been corrected that this technology is spelled with an "s," and not a "z.")

I have caught one other glimpse of 3D in the "real" world somewhere else, since that towel. But I don't see it all the time, every day.

An interesting note .... as I typed this blog post, I have had my left eye shut. I just can't take in all that extra information. Reading and typing (typing while trying to loosely proofread my own stuff), I do this with 1 eye shut.

I look forward to having both of my eyes work together. I feel like life will be so much more easy and efficient for me, instead of so exhausting and trying every day, every moment, as soon as my eyes work the way they are supposed to.

More Tape on My Glasses

"

I am sitting here, watching Doctor Who with Christopher Eccleston, as I type up a few posts to be published in the next few weeks.

I wanted to share that since I got this new concussion, I need to get the eye doctor - Dr. Magic - to re-evaluate me for Vision Therapy. My vision therapist put more tape on my glasses since I told her that my double vision has gotten worse since the concussion. So - here is a new photo of my glasses with the more tape on them. Thank you to my vision therapist, A, for doing this for me. Every little thing helps.

More tape on my glasses. Rose Tyler from Doctor Who on the TV in the background.

I also want to mention that I went in to vision therapy a week after the concussion, crying. Crying and crying due to things going on in my personal life. My head was in a complete jumble. I know I wasn't talking about things in any order. It was all completely like telling pieces of the puzzle that were scattered around a room:

"This piece of the puzzle is this...." walk to the other side of the room, find one in a corner: "this piece of the puzzle is this...." walk over to the couch, find another piece of the puzzle under a couch cushion "this piece of the puzzle looks like this...." go to the dog food bowl and pull out a half-eaten puzzle piece, "this part of the puzzle looks like this...."

I wasn't making any sense. I was crying and crying about my life. She put a weighted blanket on me. It is like getting a big hug. It turns up my body's sense of gravity. Somehow, it helps with my diagnosed Disassociation. It makes me tune in to my body as a real entity.

My vision therapist listened to me as I told all of these disparate things that I am positive didn't make any sense.

Then, she put funky glasses on me and used a pen light to shine light on my eyes through these very dark glasses. I will share more about this in the next post.

I left vision therapy after this session, feeling much more grounded and calm than when I had gone in - crying and frantic. I feel safe at vision therapy. I am grateful to have this one very safe space in my life.

I haven't ever shared yet where my vision therapy team is. I would like to give a call out to them. They are caring and wonderful and helping me learn to see and to walk. And I want to recommend them to everyone.

You can find the vision therapy team here - Dr. Tod Davis. Dr. Davis is the one in this blog to whom I refer to as: Dr. Magic.

Putting the extra tape on my glasses has made my vision calm down a bit. I am grateful they know these simple tips and tricks to help me see better - a little bit every visit.

Mentioned in this post:

Doctor Who.

Weighted Blanket

"

The Wife of The Father of The Internet

"

Note: I wrote this blog post before I received my new glasses.

Once upon a time, I worked for Vinton “Vint” G. Cerf. He is often referred to as “The Father of the Internet.” I worked for him when he was one of the Vice Presidents for a large telecomm company named MCI/Worldcomm. My dad was once friends with the founder of MCI. Here’s a little tidbit - “MCI” stood for “Microwave Communications Incorporated.” Kind of interesting, isn’t it? 

Vint Cerf was one of the coolest guys I have ever met. He is kind, smart, funny, clever. He was one of the technical advisors for Star Trek for a while. He may still be. I am not sure, actually. He is also on the board of directors of Gallaudet University. Vint Cerf wears hearing aids, or at least he did when I knew him. He also happens to be an excellent lip reader. I really enjoyed working with and for Vint Cerf. Last I heard, he was one of the big guys at Google. I wish him wonderful things. He wants to see Internet Protocol on everything. 

His wife, to whom he’s been married for decades, was deaf when they got married. I am not entirely certain of the entire story, but my understanding is that she had always been deaf. She went through surgery to get a cochlear implant. I hope I spelled that correctly. It is an implant that goes on to the back or side of your head and helps a deaf person be able to hear. After she got the implant and the doctors turned it on, she called her husband on the phone. My memory says they had been married 20-30+ years at that point. He answered the phone and she got to hear his voice for the first time in their marriage. 

Can you imagine someone’s life changing so drastically in that way? You’ve been married to and in love with someone for decades. And: you have never heard their voice. And suddenly, technology springs up, and now: you can hear your spouse’s voice for the first time. Wow. 

I feel like when I get this new pair of glasses with their PRIZM technology, that my world will radically shift, too. I keep thinking about Vint’s wife’s world shifting when she first heard his voice after decades of silence. 

Can you imagine having a decade of walking through 2 Dimensional moving pictures, and suddenly now you can see in 3D? My life is about to radically change. 

"

 

Flickering Eyesight

So, I have known for a long time that my eyes don’t work together. It has taken me almost 50 years to be able to describe what I see to people. For most of my life, I just dealt with it and didn’t really think much about it. I actually thought that I looked through my left eye only, for most of the time, and that my right eye was just along for the ride — it being on my face and all and generally pointed in the right direction.

I know some people, we can look at them and know they don’t “see normally.” Maybe their eyes aren’t both aimed the same way. Maybe they are wearing an eye patch. Maybe they have said to you, “I am legally blind.” For whatever reason, you know they don’t see normally. They either told you, or you can tell.

I haven’t really ever known or acknowledged that I had an eye problem.

I went to Dr. Magic Optometrist, and he diagnosed me for probably an hour. He performed test after test on my eyes, determining which problems I have. At one point, I was so exhausted, physically, that I just started crying. Yes, I started crying at the eye doctor. It was hard work, trying to describe what I was seeing, to an eye doctor who has seen everything.

He was patient and kind and handed me the tissue box. He explained that patients of his often have to use the tissue box. 

During my appointment with him, describing what I see, I realized that I don’t just look out of my left eye. I actually alternate - very quickly - out of each eye. One at a time. Flick. Flick. Flick.Flick. Flick. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Back and forth. 

I described this a bit to a friend of mine, who came up with this analogy. This analogy describes what I see better than I was able to. I am grateful for my friend who understands what I say so easily. 

Picture a stage with actors and props and it looks like the TV set of the TV show, “Friends.” Or some other sitcom that is familiar to you. 

There are two cameras. One is slight to the left of the center, and one is about 3 inches to the right, and maybe raised up about 2 inches. It’s got a different angle on everything, and it’s not perfectly centered. 

Ok, so the director of the show starts filming. But instead of using 1 camera, they actually do about 5 frames from one camera, and then they take about 5 frames from the other camera. Oh, and one camera’s view is slightly more blurry than the other one. 

In this way, the show is filmed. 5 frames from one camera, 5 frames from the other. It’s a “moving picture,” because the actors are moving around, talking, laughing. The furniture is physically standing still, but since it’s being filmed from 2 different angles that are alternating, it seems to flicker from one spot to the right to the other spot on the left, and back again, very rapidly. 

Now, picture that the director, to further confuse the audience, mutes about every 5th word that is said. So you, the viewer, are constantly trying to figure out the punch line, or the set up, because you can only hear every 4 out 5 of words. You’re missing a LOT of content. For one thing, you can’t look at one actor when they are talking. You’re having to alter who you are looking at, based on which camera is looking at the action. It might be the side view of one of the actor’s heads at one minute, and the next moment, it’s the front of their head and the vase right in front of them, that you can’t move, even though it’s blocking part of their face. Back and forth, rapid fire filming. 

This is what I see like. My eyes flicker back and forth CONSTANTLY. I get tired from all this conflicting input. So when I am partially tired and feel at ease (like when I am home, alone, or reading a book (and no one is staring at my face)), I will shut one eye. Usually my left eye if I am looking at something up close. Actually, as I typed this paragraph, I closed my left eye. I got tired of tilting my head to see what I was typing. This font on this computer is tiny tiny! Who made it so tiny? I will need to change this.

If I am talking with a person, I was trained as a young child to look at someone’s face when they are talking. It’s exhausting for me to do this, though. But I still do it, because “it’s rude not to.” I know people who are on the autism spectrum have trouble looking at people. I imagine that they also have so much input from so many places that they cannot filter out, so they want to look away, so they can process what they are listening to, without being distracted from what they are seeing. The same with me. I happen to also see double, at all times. Because my eyes aren’t giving me 3D input; they are actually showing me 2 different versions of the same thing, at the same time. So, looking at someone’s face, for me, is a LOT of input. It’s tiring. It’s also confusing. It’s so hard to concentrate on what someone is saying, when their face is right there, moving. It’s a constant struggle. I do my best. No wonder being with people and in crowds wears me out, but I am loathe to say, “I am an introvert.” 

Remember how I said the TV director is muting every 5th word? This is called, “suppression.” Suppression is actually written on my eye diagnosis. I suppress a LOT of information. Because I have double the input (is it really only double? It feels like 5x the input) from my eyes, I have to filter out a lot. My brain can only process so much at any given time, and then it has to suppress information, so it can sort out what it’s getting input from. 

When I am in a loud room, and someone is talking to me, I can see their face. I try to lip read. Sometimes I can do it. I would like to think I am pretty good at lip reading. But sometimes I just can’t do it. Like if it’s a noisy restaurant or a noisy environment. I simply can’t make out all the words. I can’t suppress the background information at all in an environment. My brain is already suppressing as much as it can of the visual input, and trying to sort out what I am seeing “how far is the table, where is my drink, what food is that, what smell is that, it smells really good, what color is she wearing, I like that sweater, what is the mural on the back wall depicting, what do I want to eat on this menu…..” All while getting double the visual input. 

Then, if someone is talking with me AND there is background noise, I can’t further suppress the background noise. And what happens is that I can’t hear what they are saying. I hear maybe every 5th word. And the words won’t make sense as a sentence. “Store, apple, brown, sister, 100.” I try very hard to figure out “what on earth are they talking to me about?” And I just can’t figure it out. It’s too much work. I don’t want to appear rude, so I nod and smile just like I was taught. And every now and then I may catch a little glimpse of what they are talking about, but I am honestly missing so much more than anyone knows. My brain can only suppress so much. And - it turns out - I miss audible sound because of my vision issues. 

I have had my ears checked numerous times. But you see, they check ears in a quiet environment with someone saying 1 word at a time. I can hear all the disparate words. One at a time, it’s easy. I never needed a baby monitor. My dad and I always listened to the radio on the lowest volume possible. No use turning up the volume and hurting our ears. We can hear quiet things from far away that no one else can hear. My hearing isn’t the issue. 

My eyes cause my ears not to be able to hear, because there is just too much input and I can’t take it all in. Suppression. My brain is choosing, as best it can, to sort out what is important from what is not, and can only do so much. 

I wonder what things will be like after I go to the weekly visual therapy. I guess I will (literally) see!