Proprioception and Alegria

 So, let’s talk a little about proprioception, shall we? 

I learned about this word in vision therapy. It’s a word I am still figuring out. 

It means “perception or awareness of position or movement of the body.” 

A cartoon Jodi is wearing a black and red plaid shirt, dark blue pants, black hockey skates. She has on blue hockey gloves and is holding a hockey stick in the “check” position (the end of the stick is raised above her shoulder). 

Gosh, I have so many different things I want to share about this. Either this will need to be 3 blog posts, or I can figure out how to make it interesting as one and not too long. 

I am suddenly reminded of Cirque du Soleil’s “Alegria” show. It’s a beautiful show, full of storybook characters and bird characters that walk around, dance, jump and do amazing acrobatics. It has a beautiful princess character in a white dress who sings the most beautiful songs with her extraordinary alto voice. There is a character opposite her - who wears all black and sings the harmonies. Their performances are so extraordinary that they can both do both characters. In fact, they alternate. The black-dressed character doesn’t sing as much as the white-dressed character. So they alternate nights, to give their throats a rest from doing the whole show, every night. I just find that fascinating. 

I watched a show of them, behind the scenes. I can’t remember what it’s called now. But the casting director is talking to the whole cast. She has an issue with their performance. That’s the thing about Cirque du Soliel - from what I have experienced of it (and at last count, I had seen 20 of their shows, and some of them I have seen so many times I can’t even count how many times), I love the way that everyone there strives to improve their performance for every single show. The creative director is constantly watching every show to make sure it is as spectacular or even more so than every previous show. It’s amazing.

In the tv show I watched about Alegria, I remember the casting director looking at the strong man of the show and saying to him, “Andre, in the first act, your arms are….” And he burst out, “the biggest!” 

It wasn’t what she was aiming for, but it brought a good laugh. She was trying to make sure everyone on the stage during the first act held their arms in a certain wing-like formation. She wanted everyone to be in this position the entire time they were performing a certain section of the opening act. 

Another part of the show, I think a narration of the scene I have just described, talked about how aware every single performer was in their body. Their entire being was wrapped up in every motion their body was making. 

They were centered in their body. It got me thinking. I have been thinking about this for probably 15 years or more now, and it still gets me - how aware every single circus performer is and has to be, about where their body is. 

Some circus acts are incredibly dangerous. Dangerous beyond belief. One missed beat could mean the difference between life and death. I have seen Cirque du Soleil shows and other circus shows and clowns doing incredible, breath-taking things that I would need a book to describe them. Things that no ordinary person like me could dream of doing. Acrobatics, flips, diving, silk dancing, kinetic movement beyond description. 

While I’m at it, I am just going to say - go see the resident show in Las Vegas called “KA.” It’s a Cirque du Soleil production that has things there are impossible to do. I sat there and watched and said out loud, “that’s impossible.” And yet, the performers did everything flawlessly. Like a seamless ballet. It takes my breath away just to think about scenes in that show. 

The whole idea of a stage performer being completely aware of their body. Wow. 

I grew up as a fourth generation Christian Scientist. Christian Science, for anyone who doesn’t know, doesn’t believe that the material body exists. They don’t. If you can see, hear, feel, taste or smell it, it’s not real. Anything that is real is something that is eternal - like kindness, compassion, creativity, gentleness. These qualities can’t be destroyed. But a table or even a human body can be destroyed. This is what makes them “unreal” - they can be destroyed, thus, they are unreal as far as Christian Science is concerned. 

I didn’t take biology in school. I didn’t take family life classes or whatever it’s called these days. I didn’t take the classes about drugs or alcohol or anatomy. I was exempted from all of those classes. There is so much about the human body that I didn’t learn in school. I was a faithful, fervent-believing Christian Scientist. I was determined to be the best Christian Scientist ever. I was determined to heal the way Christ Jesus did. (This is what Christian Scientists believe - that they can heal the way Jesus did. And part of doing the healing work is believing that the real qualities of God can never be destroyed.)

Growing up in Christian Science, I turned my whole back on my material body. I didn’t eat right and I didn’t exercise. Let me tell you what it’s done to me now, at the age of 49. I am no longer fit. I am no longer the athlete I used to be. I used to run track, dance ballet, snow ski, canoe, rock climb, go caving. I could do just about any sport I wanted to do. I took about 5 golf lessons and did really well with that too. I played on the roller hockey intermural team in college, too. What a rough sport. It was men and women on the team. Mostly men. And they didn’t care who they were running into. It hurt like crazy and I loved every moment of it. 

I have been out of Christian Science now about 7-8 years. I have been working very hard to realize my human body is real. It’s been quite the learning curve. 

One of the things I had to come to terms with was the fact that I have heart problems. I have supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) and atrial-Fibbrilation. One of these things means that the left and right side of my heart don’t talk well to each other. They forget it’s a dance between 2 sides and sometimes just pump on one side of my heart. This can be a lethal thing for the person who experiences it. I am lucky to be alive, frankly. I am so grateful to still be here. I feel like I have so much to share with the world and I am just getting started. The other heart problem is that my heart can beat too fast. It beats way too fast and makes me feel dizzy, like I want to pass out. I have had heart surgery and thankfully, where I am now is that even if my heart feels weird and crazy, it’s not going to kill me. Also, I take a daily heart medicine now that also keeps it more in check. 

I haven’t exercised in something like 20 years. Probably more like 30-35 years. I exercised in Physical Education class in school, all the way through college. And I also did ballet and track, like I said. I was active and enjoyed being athletic. I was fit and gave all the glory to God. It wasn’t my body doing these things, it was me expressing my Maker, God. 

Life took some twists and turns and I ended up on the couch. For 20 years. Marrying, having babies, giving up all the things I used to love, and putting my children and marriage first, ahead of any human or material needs I would have wanted. I thought it was the right thing to do. 

And now I am 49, coming up quickly on 50. I will turn 50 this year. And I am in the worst shape of my life. It’s so hard to go from couch-sitting to heart problems to staying in bed due to anxiety, heart problems and a fear of leaving the house due to my own vision issues (yes, I have blogged about how my vision issues are related to me being afraid to leave the house - click on the link in the sidebar for Dissociation - and read how it’s all related).  

I want to be fit. I want to be able to snow ski again. I live in the Shenandoah Mountains now. I live 8 miles from a ski resort. I live next to the Shenandoah River, too. I used to love canoeing. I want to be able to do that too. I love being on the water. I love being on the snow. 

Proprioception. Awareness of where your body is, and how it’s moving in space. I want more of that. Proprioception. I did snow angels on the carpet (okay, they are actually called carpet angels) when I started vision therapy. I sat in a spinning swing or a rolling office chair and spun in place very slowly. I learned how to reach out and touch objects in space. All of these different activities were attempting to teach me to connect with my body - give my brain new patterns and wiring. Literally rewiring my brain.

I did so much work learning where my body is in space, learning about proprioception in vision therapy. And I feel like I have only just begun to say what I wanted to say when I started this blog post. But it feels long enough now. 

So more about this topic will come along in a future post. Thank you for reading my blog. I appreciate having you here. 

Vision and Athletic Skill

This blog post is dedicated to all the Olympians, whether they have competed in the past, will compete in the future, are competing in this year's games, or have arrived and for whatever reason, found themselves fully trained and ready and then not able to compete. They have a skill that I can only equate to a Super Hero's agility, ability, strength and fortitude. 

Dissociation

My Optometrist gave a talk on Memorial Day. He interviewed me and I was 1 of 2 current patients of his that he featured in the talk. In order to see the talk, you need to have a membership to an optometry website: I heart VT. Like - I love Vision Therapy. I think this is the link: https://www.iheartvt.org 

[Photo: the iheart VT logo. There is a black heart to the left of the words, and the photo has a magenta offset heart above it and to the left, and a turquoise offset heart below it and to the right.]

I wonder how many of you relate to some of the things he said?

The topic was Dissociation. He was explaining how Optometrists can recognize that many of their patients probably do it. And how to help them with Vision Therapy.

There are some of the symptoms -

1. Tunneling. Meaning, focused so intently on what you are looking at, so that the background disappears. This can show up as a person walking and staring at the ground, unable to look up as they walk. This can also show up with horse back riders - they stare at the horses head to the frustration of horse riding trainers.
2. Sensitivity to light. Keeping lights off in the house. Walking around in the dark.
3. Issues with driving and parking. Not able to gage what speed you are going. Not able to park straight.
4. Being startled easily when things come in to your visual range.
5. Unable to focus on reading. Unable to focus on studying.
6. Things (like furniture, the floor, fixed objects) “move.” (Jareth has this. It was my normal; I didn’t realize I have this until vision therapy made things stop moving and then it was AMAZINGly calm.)
7. Perhaps existing in a “fictional world” in your head. That can feel very real. 
8. Isolation. This one struck me big - because I see me having been doing this over the years, more and more: Isolation, over time, means "not wanting to leave the house." Closing curtains and closing yourself in. It doesn’t start when someone is younger but increases over the years. I just blocked off my windows with contac paper maybe 2 months ago. My decluttering expert unblocked windows of mine. And I have basically re-blocked them off. Remember, I am approaching 50. So if you’re in your 20s or 30s, you may not relate to this one. No worries.

The exercises they have given me - wear ankle weights during vision therapy and at home now and then (light weight: 1 pound weights) and use a weighted blanket have helped me. There was a time during Vision Therapy with my therapist, A, when she asked me "how are you doing?" And I replied: "I think I am dissociating." She got into gear and made the exercise much harder so I was forced to pay attention!

That moment was a pivotal moment for me - I need to pay attention to the HERE and NOW. Smells, sensations, my 5 senses ... these are the things I pay attention to much more now after months of vision therapy with their focus to help me not dissociate anymore! I don't think I dissociate anymore, but I will get back to you on that. This is HUGE!

By the way, people who dissociate in their childhood (as I did), have large chunks of their memory missing. I have large chunks of my memory missing. I do remember, as a child, thinking, "I need to remember my memories, or I will forget them." And I would sit there and intentionally review my memories. I wonder if other people ever did that too? Please let me know your thoughts on this topic in the comments, below. Thank you!

Light Therapy

I have been doing light therapy as part of my vision therapy. We started at once a week at the vision therapy practice, I think 3 minutes per round.

So, you may have heard of light therapy for folks who have Seasonal Affect Disorder. Some folks get sad or depressed during the winter months because there is less sunlight. My friend Katie of the Fellowship of Former Christian Scientists uses this lamp:

Some folks use lamps like that one, to combat the long winter months and feel more happy because they have more light in their life during the winter.

Light therapy, it turns out, can do more than just help a person feel more happy during the winter months!

It turns out that light therapy can treat skin issues too, and a variety of other things. I had light therapy on my exzema and some other things on my skin that I can't remember now specifically what they were. It basically bleached some red patches on my skin and worked in conjunction with a topical cream solution I use twice a day.

Light therapy, according to WebMd, can also treat migraines, acne, neck pain, dementia, strokes... all kinds of things! Wow!

My vision therapy team has loaned me a lamp with a lightbulb in it. When I first did this, I used a bright pen light to shine light through specific glasses I wear. Then, they told me to use a non-LED bulb at 25 watts at home. I set one up.

And now they have loaned me the correct lamp. It's a nice portable little lamp. I am supposed to work my way slowly up to 20 minutes per session, per pair of glasses.

The first pair of glasses is a deep indigo color. I love looking at the bulb through the relaxing indigo color. It's quite beautiful. The glasses say on them: "Upsilon-Omega." Then, I rest my eyes by palming them. Then I put on the second pair of glasses, they are a deep forest green color, and stare at the lightbulb. The green glasses say on them: "Mu-Upsilon." I am not as much a fan of the green glasses.

I have to do these specific glasses. I think the case where they store the glasses at the vision therapist office has 20-30 pairs of different types of glasses. So this two pairs are my specific "prescription." I am not entirely sure what they are doing.

The green may be making me less sensitive to bright light outside and thus have fewer migraines. I am not sure. The blue may be helping me see better out of my right eye, especially. I don't think I have written the blog post yet about how I cannot see in the dark at all. I really can't, and especially can't see out of my right eye in the dark.

I figured this out when my son was trying to show me something and it was evening. He had to hold my hand and guide me around bushes, trees and a neighbor's house to go see something. Oh wait, he actually wanted me to Smell something; not see it. I think someone had been vaping and he thought it smelled good but he didn't know what it was. When he got me back to that place, the scent was gone. I am guessing it was a vape pen that smelled like vanilla or something.

But that was the night I realized I seriously can't see in the dark as well as probably normal people can.

It's funny, because I keep the lights dim in the house all the time. I walk around in the dark or have minimal nightlights in the outlets that are movement-sensitive, so they turn on just so I can see where I'm going at night.

I think this blog post has wandered all over the place. I think I will need to do another blog post about this topic. Maybe on a day when my ADHD brain is a bit more organized!!

This Covid-19 quarantine is doing quite the number on my thinking / my thoughts. Everything is in a jumble.

I type this blog post at the end of April; I think I have been self-quarantining for almost 2 months now. I wish I had written down the date that I started. It's been a while.

I wonder if by the time this is read, if I will still be in quarantine. Probably. The date for Virginia to stop the quarantine, as far as I know, is June 10. At least it was the last time I checked.

Best wishes to all. Please leave me a comment so I know you're reading.

 

Covid-19

Well, I have an unusual blog post for now. I have been self-quarantining for I think about 6+ weeks now. I started before President Trump was taking it seriously. No, that's not a dig at the President. It's just a fact. I took it seriously based on the advice of a friend of mine.

This is a shout out to my friend and a few of his links:

https://www.facebook.com/MythicalMasks/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1306950149513790/

My friend is Shane Odom of Miscellaneous Oddiments. He and his wife make bubble wands for the Maryland Renaissance Festival. They also make leather masks and use the scraps from the eye holes of the masks to make delightful leaf-shaped earrings of all kinds. They also make Yule season ornaments. And Shane cuts out the most intricate snowflakes I have ever seen, with themes taken from Mother Nature.

Shane posted something early on in the Covid-19 theme talking about how folks will need to self-isolate and how he had already begun to self-isolate. I immediately started wearing gloves and started using my hand sanitizer. I rarely used hand sanitizer, and now I was using it regularly.

Anyway, soon I learned about needing masks, and I began to try to find a pattern that my boys and I could sew together. I homeschool my boys, so I figured a class or 5 about sewing was in the works. It took way too long for me to find a pattern, but we did, eventually.

My older son cuts out the cloth and batting. He and I shared the work of sewing. My younger son hasn't yet seemed interested in the project. But we will get there eventually. I wish I had some buttons, I would teach them both how to sew a button. Before they leave my home, I want them to learn some basic sewing skills. One thing I pride myself on is making that back or inside as beautiful as the outside. I believe this is something I may have read in the book series, "Little House on the Prairie," but Laura Ingalls Wilder. Or, I may have read it in "Gone with the Wind," by Margaret Mitchell.

I believe Steve Jobs must have had this same ethic, because I hear the inside of the Apple products are just as beautiful as the outside is.

Apparently, I love to digress. I hope you will forgive me. My ADHD runs away with my thoughts sometimes, and I have to reel in my train of thought.

Well, that cute movie and its "Train of Thought" got me distracted completely and now I can't remember what I was typing about.

Oh yes, Covid-19 and masks.

So, I guess what I want to say is: I hope you're self isolating. I hope if you're out and about that you are wearing a mask. The best masks are a layer of cotton with a layer of flannel. One layer of loosely-woven cotton won't do a thing. Please do more than that. Ask a friend to make you a mask, or order from this person (she is the friend of a friend) --

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10105760641550107&set=p.10105760641550107&type=3&theater

I had a routine of how I did things when I was still going out and about before I chose to self-quarantine completely. Here is my pattern. I am sure you have yours. But just in case this might help someone, here is what I have been doing:

My gloves are all assigned certain tasks. I was walking 3 different dogs, so I had 3 different pairs of gloves. Each set of gloves was assigned only to that one dog. And, yes, I washed them. I also hand-sanitized them. But I will get to that part.

I also had one more pair for when I went grocery shopping. Only for grocery shopping and nothing else.

So, I would get out of my car, open the back to my car to reveal my various sets of gloves all laid out. Then with my bare hands, I would reach to my door knob inside the car and hit the lock-button to lock the car. Then I would get out my mask, sitting on the dashboard of my car. I would put on my mask, and shut the car door with probably my elbow or my hip.

Then, I would walk to the back of the car, select the appropriate pair of gloves, and put them on.

When I got back to the car, I would slide off just one glove and open the hatch back. (So as not to contaminate the back hatch of my car with my gloved hand and whatever it picked up.)

Open the back hatch, use the hand sanitizer on them, and put them in their proper place in the lineup of gloves.

Opening that back hatch would unlock my car. So now I could, with no gloves on my hand, open my car door, take off my mask, put it on the dashboard, and sanitize my hands again. Then I would shut the door.

It was a whole routine. I haven't had to do this in weeks, so I may have missed a step in there. But believe me, I had thought it out and was being as careful as possible.

I am considered to be in the "High Risk" category because of my heart problems. I asked my doctor about this. My doctor first said that basically everyone is considered "high risk" now, but yes, my heart problems especially put me in that category. This is one of the reasons why I took it so seriously, wore gloves, had a habit of how to do this, and self-isolated quickly.

The last time I went out to walk the dogs was the first day I wore the mask. My heart started beating rapidly for no reason. I was just walking around the home of someone whose dog I walk. I got the dog's water dish and was washing it in her sink. My heart started beating rapidly and I couldn't breathe. The mask impeded my breathing even further and I felt like I was about to suffocate.

I had to take my mask off in her house and do my best to leash up her dog so I could get us outside so I could pant and try to breathe and calm down my heart.

The whole experience was very scary for me, and I have been home ever since that dog walk. I am not sure what to do when I need to go out and about again and still wear a mask. I don't know if the proper N95 masks are more easy to breathe with. I wonder if any of them will be available by the time it becomes necessary for me to be out in public again?

So, I wrote this post to let you know that I, too, and self-quarantined. I am isolated. I am watching Netflix and movies. I am learning to be creative and cook from the pantry. My dog and I are taking things easy, and so are the boys. We are just trying to get through these difficult days and doing our best, the best we can, during this time.

I hope you all are doing what you can do to get through this extraordinary time, too.

I will leave you with this photo that I'm not particularly a fan of, but it's of me wearing the mask I sewed. My son picked out the beautiful fabric for my mask. An odd thing happens when you take a selfie and you're wearing a mask - you realize it doesn't matter if you smile or not.

I have vision issues and the sun was most definitely in my eyes when I took this shot. I wasn't smiling. I was squinting at the camera to make sure it was aimed correctly. Haha.

 

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 Vision Therapist

I got permission from my vision therapy team to give a real shout out to them. So, I am going to use this post to just give a shout out to my Optometrist, Dr. Tod Davis, who is a leader in the industry of vision therapy, and to his whole team of people - from the office folks to the vision therapists who work for him and help me see better.

Dr. Tod Davis from Virginia Vision Therapy

They have multiple locations and multiple vision therapists. I haven't met the entire team of people who work for him. But the ones I have met are all fantastic. I have learned something from probably every single person I have met at his team.

Dr. Davis has a fun sense of humor. He also loves the talents that people have. I think he genuinely gets enjoyment from knowing people and seeing all the cool things they do. Also, he loves to share joy with everyone who comes in to his space. He's a great guy and I feel privileged to be getting help from this team.

When Dr. Davis was testing me to see what specific kinds of things should be put into my glasses to help me see better, he tested my ability to see 3D.

He told me to look at his face and concentrate on his nose. He put a pair of Prism testers over my eyes and asked me what changed. I said, "your nose came forward!" He looked genuinely amused.

He took the prisms away from me and told me to do the same thing - look at his face, but this time, concentrate on his ears. He put up the prisms for me, and his whole everything changed. He asked me, "what changed about my ears?" I said, "they went around to the back of your head!"

I think this kind of thing is a wonderfully entertaining thing for Dr. Davis to experience with patient after patient. They have never seen in 3D, and he gets to introduce the experience to them. WOW. From my perspective, it's clear that he enjoys his work. He enjoys helping people see better.

I believe he also cares about the people and wants them to be able to live a more fuller life, with eyes that work the way they are supposed to. If you need vision therapy, I encourage you to contact Dr. Tod Davis. If you don't live near him (in the Washington, DC / Northern Virginia area), then I encourage you to contact him and see if he can refer you to a vision therapist in your area.

https://virginiavisiontherapycenter.com

More Tape on My Glasses

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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

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I am a Guest Blogger Somewhere Else Too

I am a regular blogger on another blog. That blog is for folks like me who, once upon a time, identified as a Christian Scientist. https://exchristianscience.com/2019/03/10/i-never-received-childhood-vaccinations/ 

This is one is the recent posts I did on that blog. I also post there as "anonymous" and have written other posts too. 

One of our regular posts over there is on Thanksgiving Day; a bunch of us contribute every year. This year, I am sure I will be sharing my gratitude for vision therapy. 

In September, 2019, part of my story was in the Oprah Magazine. Here is a link to that story, too. I just felt compelled to give a bit more information about my background. 

A link to my story in the Oprah Magazine: https://www.oprahmag.com/life/health/a28703527/former-anti-vaxxer-moms-open-up/?utm_medium=social-media&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=socialflowFBOPR