How Did The Last Two Weeks Go?
Things have been going okay for the last few weeks. It is December and I love this time of year and getting involved in community activities. This is also the season when my kids seem to ALWAYS be sick so I have had at least one child home sick almost everyday since my last appointment.
Kids home bring disrupted routines and also mean that I get to put on my teacher hat and help them with homeschool. I seriously don’t know how parents in places that are still on Covid lockdown are doing it!
I realized that I haven’t been noticing as much stereopsis. I’ve questioned this wondering if it’s because I am getting used to it or I haven’t been as dedicated to home exercises.
But then a third option hit me as I drove to my appointment today, I stopped wearing my binasal occlusion glasses and prism just about a week before I noticed the real decline.
I mentioned this to Dr. Dan and he said, “well, I never did tell you to stop wearing the glasses.” I don’t really know why I stopped, actually, probably because I get annoyed with the glasses and they are always dirty. Dr. Dan had a brilliant solution, he gave me my own lens cloth so I could clean them…I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.
So now I have shiny glasses and I am going to wear them and stop taking them off!
How Did the Appointment Go?
My appointment went really well. I decided to drink some zip fizz before the appointment (it is a caffeine/vitamin type powder you add to water) and I noticed a difference. I am able to stay focused and I don’t tire as easily. Caffeine is amazing.
The only negative is that I get a little chatty and sarcastic and I can’t stop making jokes and being super fun to hang out with…oh I guess that is a good thing. It must still be in my system…
Near Focus 
Distant Focus
Vortex Vectogram
I love new activities so much. They are exciting, they make me want to barf, I can feel my brain working so hard.
Today I was able to try the Vortex Vectogram for the first time and I already want one of my own (big shock there). It is very similar to the GEM vectograph in that you wear polarized glasses so that each eye can only see one part of the picture. When both eyes combine the images, voila, it gives the illusion of floating in front of or behind the plastic card.
The cool thing about the Vortex is the name.
Also cool, would be the fact that it is a variable vectograph which means that it isn’t all the same amount forward or back, it changes. So the letters E, N, and O may all appear in front of the card, while the rest appear behind.
I stood on a balance board and tossed a bean bag from hand to hand with Dr. Dan shaking the card slightly while working on this for almost 20 minutes. When I first looked at it, all I saw was a flat spiral. But the more time we spent on it, the more depth I was able to see.
I feel like I am learning that I need to spend more time just looking and letting my brain sort things out. It takes time and patience.
After we finished this exercise I was shocked (and disappointed at first) to see that more than half of my VT appointment was already over. But then I realized how much progress was made and realized that it was worth every second.
Randolph Shuffle (Can we please call it the Rudolph Shuffle??? It is December…)
Next we moved to another new exercise. The Rudolph Shuffle (yes, I renamed it). It is a body exercise which is something I used to think was a waste, but I am slowly buying into these types of exercises more.
Here is how it works.
The basic idea is that you move your arm (or legs) in a specific pattern.
- Down
- Straight forward
- To the Side
- Straight Forward
- Down
At first you do just one arm or leg at a time, but then of course it gets more complicated because vision therapy does that.
The most complicated I got was doing both arms and one leg at a time. I think I want to try to do it forwards with one arm and backwards with the opposite leg, now that would be a real challenge!
Dry Land Swim
I showed off all the skills I’ve been working on and apparently I still need to work on this because it was reassigned. He said that I have gotten so much better since the last appointment, but that I needed a little more time to perfect it.
I agree, it is a tough one!
VTS4
We spent the last 5-10 minutes doing some quick work with the stereopsis ring in VTS4. I can see it so well and it just looks amazing, as long as I am about 6 inches away from the screen. I worked on being able to move further back and keep the same level of stereopsis going.
I am seeing major improvements, but they are all definitely slow.
Prisms
Homework
Head Turns/Shakes Warm Up – Move head from side to side and up and down 20 x, at a medium speed to get warmed up before starting any exercises. This will warm up my eyes, brain and all the good things.
Gem- Use a pen and focus on getting the gem to come off of the plastic. Work on getting the pen behind the illusion of the floating gem by using peripheral. Incorporate balance by standing heal to toe or standing on one foot.
Dry Land Swim– Keep practicing what we worked on during the appointment. Move from side to side smoothly, evenly, and accurately. Do opposite arm/leg and same side arm/leg.
Randolph Shuffle- Move through the levels of the pattern of movement: forward, side, forward, down. Start with one arm, then both arms, then arm/leg combos, ending with both arms and one leg. Memorize the pattern.
Vivid Vision– Do at least 20 minutes everyday and do more like 45 minutes at least every other day.