The Cow is Round

Yesterday was a whirlwind. Thus I've created a timeline of the events and how they occured. Leap Day 2012 has become our leap of faith day. I believe this day is going to positively impact Kathryn's future success!

2:30 PM - I just picked up Kathryn's glasses! Dr. Collier said that when she puts on the glasses she will immediately start seeing in 3-D. Everything will become so vivid for her for about one hour. After that time her brain will revert back to its old way of processing. She will report that everything will look like it is wrapped in plastic. She is to keep the glasses on as long as she is comfortable wearing them. She gets to wear them to school tomorrow and keep them on all day. He anticipates that we should start seeing changes in her thinking patterns, the way that she's able to express herself more clearly, an increase in her tracking ability and in her reading by possibly the weekend but certainly by Monday!

3:00 PM - I am holding what I hope to be the solution to so many of Kathryn's difficulties in my hand. It is such a surreal feeling! Hopefully - finally she will get the help that she needs so that she can see the world in the same ease that the rest of us take for granted. Driving home from the doctor's office I am overcome with emotion: anticipation, hoping, longing for success, loving this child and only wanting the best for her. Before I know it I'm weeping not because of sadness but of overwhelming love for my sweet daughter.

I'm hit with the same feeling I felt when I was in labor with dear Kathyrn. The same reason I cried that night before her birth (and the birth of all my children). I'm overcome with the powerful feeling of unconditional love and nurturing for this human being. So uncertain as to the future but yet so certain that I will do anything and everything to help this child.

I can't wait to hear it through her words and her actions. I love my Kathryn with all my heart - her quirkiness,  her way of communicating that only I can so easily understand. It has become my second nature to answer the quizzical look upon the faces of friends and family who are trying to talk with her. I know that is a connection to Kathryn that will go away once she is able to clear her mind of all the confusion. However, I will gladly exchange that for her independence and her feeling of acceptance from everyone.  It's well worth the trade. I am so anxious and ready to see the awesome girl that my baby will become.

6:00 PM - Steve and I present Kathryn with her glasses. She is so ready to put them on! But we have to prepare her for how her brain will respond. It's funny how after her diagnosis several revealing converstations emerged, one being that she "wished our house were in 3D." In fact she wished the world were in 3D. So today I got to ask her, "Kathryn if you could see anything you wanted to in 3D, what would that be?" Of all things, she wanted to play with the animals in her Little People farm. Happily she played pretend with her animals and then I finally asked her, "How are the animals different?" Her response, "The cow is round." THE COW IS ROUND! The first time my baby experienced depth...roundness of a pudgy Fisher Price cow. THE COW IS ROUND!
We went outside. She got to pet the neighbors Scottie dogs as they went by on their nightly walk. She looked at the daffodils. She jumped, she skipped, she ran, she swang. She was happy!


Another discovery: The TV is square. IT'S SQUARE! Until that moment it had always been a circle. Imagine looking through one of those small tubes with a plastic lens at the other end that are usually given out as birthday party favors. It causes you to see more than one of an object. Imagine 4 squares - two stacked on top of each other and one on either side - and the shape processed by her mind is a circle. THE TV IS SQUARE!

After dinner and after the small window of initial depth perception had passed we went back to the Fisher Price farm. The cow was not nearly as round and it may have been blue(????).  But she was certain we had two lamps on the foyer table (in actuality there is only one). TWO LAMPS! All her life she thought that cluster of stuff on the table was that...a cluster of lamps, a cluster of vases. But tonight there were noticably TWO LAMPS which is different than what it was just a few hours before during her small window of clarity. That clarity will return. Of that I am certain.

Stella's Road

While Googling around for what to expect when Kathryn receives her prism glasses I stumbled upon a wonderfully written blog. This mother writes of her toddler's experiences with vision therapy. Her account of the initial developmental optomologist appointment is so insanely similar to ours! This blog brought tears of relief, happiness, regret, and anticipation for me. Reading it might help you understand Kathryn's world a little better.

how-vision-therapy-is-saving-stellas-toes-and-then-some

Asking for directions

Once we decided to seek the help of a Developmental Optometrist the nagging feeling of doing anything and everything to help Kathryn catch up to her classmates disappeared. This had to be the way. Originally I thought I would make the appointment for President's Day so she wouldn't have to miss anymore school but once the decision was made I couldn't spare another moment. I called to make the appointment on Thursday and they were able to see us the next day.

Our peditrician consulted several specialists and referred us to Dr. Collier. I consulted the online community for our small city and found several positive reviews of Dr. Collier and his practice. There are a handful of Developmental Optomologists in our area, but based on his positive reviews and the his convenient location, he is the one we chose.

I had heard that he had a very dry sense of humor and used a lot of scientific language. He is said to be a brilliant man and if the layperson can adapt to his "bedside manner" he was an excellent resourse. To my surprise, Dr. Collier was very child friendly. He had playful toys for Kathryn to focus on and distracted her with imagination games.

The first procedure he performed with her involved her reciting a tongue twister "purple hippopotomus". No surprise that Kathryn stumbled over the words and wasn't able to pronounce hippopotamus. He pulled a set of lenses out of his drawer, placed them on her eyes and asked her to repeat "purple hippopotamus"... and she spoke with complete clarity like I've never heard her speak before! Could her vision been the crux of her past speech delays???
          
A Diagnosis

Strabismus is the misalignment of the eyes. When both eyes are properly aligned and aimed at the same target, the visual portion of the brain fuses the forms into a single image. When one eye turns inward, outward, upward, or downward, two different pictures are sent to the brain.The result is "double vision" or more like "quadruple vision" as Kathryn continues to report that she sees objects in groups of 4. Two or four, it is certain that her perception differs from actuality.

Further discoveries include that her right eye has a 8 degree difference from the other. So when she is gazing forward her right eye is 8 degrees inward. Her fidgeting is due to helping to regulate the timing of her cerebellum. The tilt of her head assists her with a inbalance in her vestibular system. All of these behaviors are coping mechanisms that she has discovered help her process the world around her.

In order to relieve symptoms of double vision, she is learning to ignore the misaligned eye's image and see only the image from the best-seeing eye. This results is a loss of binocular vision, impairing depth perception.

It takes a lot of effort to control her gaze and because she is still developing these compensations sometimes her brain will alternate which eye’s input to attend to causing the image or text to appear to wiggle or move.

Treatment

Through the help of her Developmental Optometrist, Dr. Collier, she has a treatment plan. In a few weeks she will start wearing glasses with special lenses that have a prism ground into them. The prisms alter the light entering the eye and assist in reducing the eye turn. Sometimes the prisms are able to fully compensate for and eliminate the eye turning reducing the double vision/moving text.

The glassess are like braces for her eyes. It is a step to help the eyes work together. She will also complete a structured program of visual activities prescribed to improve eye coordination and eye focusing abilities.

Through therapy we hope she gains comfortable, single, clear, normal binocular vision at all distances and directions of gaze.