Daily Life Highlights
Melissa The Conquerer
I was listening to a podcast for teens with my son and the author had us do an exercise called, “Your name the blank.” You were supposed to think of that person in your mind that you want to be and then come up with an adjective to describe them.
I struggled to come up with mine and debated for a few days. Melissa the Kind, Melissa the Brave, Melissa the Tired… Then it just came to me one day, by surprise, and just felt perfect.
Melissa the Conquerer!
Now when I’m making decisions, big and small, I can picture “Melissa the Conquerer” in my mind and decide what she would do and then do that.
Melissa the Conquerer doesn’t give up. She takes care of her mind and body to help conquer goals. She searches for answers and solutions until she finds them. She keeps on trying, even if it means failing 100 times, because eventually, she will get it right and conquer!
If you’re interested, the podcast is called “Secrets for an Awesome Life” by Joey Mascio. The specific episode is #37, “Falling Behind.”
Conquering Healthy Eating
I have been working so hard to eat less sugar and it has a direct, positive result on my vision. I wish that that wasn’t the case because I LOVE treats, but alas, sugar makes it so hard to get my eyes to work. Lack of sleep doesn’t help either.
Every time I go to grab a cookie or treat I remind myself that I am Melissa the Conquerer and I walk away…well at least 50% of the time I walk away.
Conquering the Tiniest Bridge of All Time
I visited my sister in Utah and had to drive under this tiny tiny bridge multiple times. Only 8 feet tall!! It was so terrifying at first and I had to just crawl through at 5 mph. I would feel my heart start racing and I would get SO nervous and just slow to a stop before going under.
Then I remembered that I am conquering vision and I just decided to be confident instead. I started practicing all my vision therapy skills and by the end of the week I went through without any trouble at all. AMAZING! Just a little confidence (and a lot of vision therapy) can make a huge difference!
Conquering The Skill Saw
I had a similar experience helping my sister build shelves. I was in charge of measuring, she did the cutting, but then she left.
I got all the measuring done and was waiting for her and decided that Melissa the Conquerer doesn’t just sit and wait. I picked up the saw and gave myself a great little pep talk and I cut the most beautiful, straight lines of my life. I used my skills of engaging peripheral and all of my tricks and it worked! I used to be terrible with sawing boards. When we built our house it felt like a hopeless cause. It was so fun to realize I was 10x better at it now!
Conquering Summer
My cute son needs more vision therapy and he isn’t too thrilled about it. If I figure out how to motivated him to actually try on his exercises, I will let you know because we have definitely not figured that one out yet. Send help!
In my efforts to motivate him I made us a reward chart. Everyday that we do our therapy we get to color a bit in. There are prizes at different levels. He still seems unimpressed with VT, but I am finding it extremely motivating and I haven’t missed a day since we started.
Summer can be so challenging with all the kids home. On top of that we have cousins coming in and out and family reunions and a garden to manage. I’ve decided to set a minimum baseline for my exercises and it is really helping. I just have to do each exercise for 2 minutes every day, no matter what.
Obviously, I hope to do much more than that, and most days I do. But 2 minutes is my absolute minimum. On the days where the schedule is insane and I would usually skip, I just run to my room and spend 10 minutes. I think it is making a difference!
Consistency is key!
Appointment Highlights
I’ve been noticing that my eyes are struggling with tracking and it is so hard for me to look up or to the sides so I have been working on it as I fall to sleep each night. I am gaining so much more awareness about where my eyes are and how they move. More on that in a future post!
June 1
My first appointment in June went okay. It was the Tuesday following an insanely busy Memorial Day weekend so I had gone 4 days with absolutely no vision therapy homework so, naturally, we didn’t see a lot of progress.
We went to an amusement park Memorial Day and I had been a little dizzy and lightheaded, nothing too serious, but when we started the first exercise with yoked prisms, I about fell over. I was so disoriented and I just wanted to reach out and touch the wall to help me stay stable. Dr. Dan coached me through and reminded me to keep my peripheral open and after a few minutes my brain adjusted and I was able to walk without falling over.
Next, we worked on an activity called “peripheral straw and tube.” I had to look straight forward while Dr. Dan held a paper towel roll just outside of my central vision. I had a pen and had to put it into the roll without touching the sides or looking at either. I think I tried about 25 times and I think I was only successful once or twice. I tried all my tricks, but it just wasn’t happening. Needless to say, he assigned it for me to practice at home this week.
I was able to try a new vectograph with balloons and it was fun to try something that I haven’t seen before. Even looking at a 2D image there seems to be quite a bit of depth, but with the special polarized glasses I was getting glimpses of even more depth and space between the balloons. I kept covering one eye to see if it was different and it totally was!
My numbers were low on VTS4, but I was still able to see depth and the longer I sat and just took it all in, the more depth I was able to see.
After struggling with so many exercises, you’d think I’d be really discouraged, but I’m not. Things are happening exactly as they are supposed to and I expect to see success start back up in 2 weeks (there always seems to be a lag).
June 8
I forgot to write about this appointment and I have absolutely no idea what it was like. I do know that it was the day that my son, Teagan, also started his second round of VT for accommodation problems. Now we are vision therapy buddies.
June 18–
My VT appointment was canceled this week, we were out of town partying at my sister’s house! But I did have an appointment with my ophthalmologist which went really well.
I was able to get a little more on the stereo test, all the way to #4, which is the farthest I’ve ever gotten. It wasn’t super clear or anything and I had to hold it right up to my face, but I practiced pulling it further away and holding the depth while I waiting for the Dr. to come in.
The exciting news came when they took my measurements. At a 20 foot distance my eye turn was still at 10-12 diopters of esotropia. We’d love to see those numbers go down, but, holding steady is better than an increase! Up close, my turn went from 12 to 6 (and sometimes it was at zero at near). The therapy is working and I am so excited about it!
Dr. Peterson was also really excited about the progress. He mentioned that surgery is an option to get my eyes perfectly straight. This surgery would be very minor and he would just lightly tweak one muscle. For now, I’m sticking with vision therapy because I am seeing great results. I will be back to see them next year and hopefully we see more progress.
June 22
I am writing this one week later and I am having a hard time remembering what we did exactly so I’ll give the short version. We worked on the gem and I was getting really good depth as long as Dr. Dan put his thumb on the card behind it. As soon as he move his thumb, I wasn’t able to get much depth.
I did horribly on the VTS4, once again. It was doubling so quickly which was very frustrating for me. I can’t remember, but I know there were a few other things we were working on with the Hart Chart.
We finished up on the MIT (Macula Integrity Tester) which I have a picture of below from bernell.com (you must be an optometrist to purchase). There is a blue light box type thing that you look into and the optometrist puts different slides in front with circle cut outs and tiny little dots. I am sure there are so many more things that it can do. I still am trying to understand it.
The machine is so interesting, when you look into it, you see a little fan rotating and, for me, it is moving all over the place. It especially moves up and to the right and is more random with my weaker eye.
There was a tiny black dot in the middle and I tried to get the fan to be centered on the dot. It was much easier with my left eye than my right. I got super tired by the end!
June 29
Today we started off with luster and I was doing really well. I was wearing red/green glasses and looked at the window (blinds closed) and tried to see a mixture of the red and green called “luster.” I felt like it was so much easier than it used to be. I still have to close each eye to make sure and I have to refocus to get it to hold, but it was pretty manageable.
With the red/green glasses still on we moved to the big TV where there were dots moving in a circle that I had to tap. Because of the glasses, the dots look either white or black and it is super tricky to aim correctly. I had to go very slow and be deliberate in order to get them just right.
Then we switched to the “Ring” on VTS4 and my numbers were finally up! I was getting to 12-16 pretty easily without the ring doubling. If I can hold that progress steady, we will decrease my prism at my next appointment!
We finished with the MIT again and I was able to understand how to control it so much more this time. I purposely looked away from the center to show my brain that I could move the fan, then I would move it back to the middle. The fan moves wherever I am looking, and I’m learning that my eyes don’t hold still for very long at a time!