VT Appointments 40 and 41 – No More Strike-Outs

Click here to read about my last appointment.

How Have Things Been Going at Home?

Today is appointment day, only 8 more days until surgery, I can’t believe how fast the time has flown!

Today my kids went back to school full time, for now. I feel a huge relief, like I have some room to breath. I am so excited to get back to structure and routine. It makes such a difference to have times that I can count on for doing my home vision therapy exercises.

My progress pictures were interesting today. Usually, when I take a selfie and use a relaxed gaze, my eye will go straight, but it didn’t today. It makes me feel less apprehensive about my choice to have surgery. I don’t want to be fighting this eye turn forever. I have high hopes for the surgery making it possible for me to use my eyes together and keep them together!

I did have a huge win this last week! We were invited to go to some batting cages and play for our friend’s 40th birthday.

I made contact with all 10 balls on my first try in the cage!!!!!! 🙌🏼🙌🏼 I haven’t played softball since I was a kid where I would literally strike out EVERY single time I got up to bat.

I remember playing with my husband when we were dating once and it was so embarrassing to just miss over and over again. Baseball has always been the hardest sport for me, apparently depth perception makes a difference. 
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I almost didn’t try that night, because I didn’t want to embarrass myself, but I had my prism glasses on and I just had to try and I’m so glad I did.

I ultra focused and brought my eyes together and focused on watching the ball. I could see so many details on the ball and it felt like slow motion. Steropsis is literally the best thing ever.

I can’t stop smiling, I feel so proud of myself. It is awesome to see my hard work paying off.

How did the Appointments Go?

I don’t remember my last appointment super well, so I’m not going to worry about trying to sort out what we did, it was pretty similar to this week. The progress pictures are not really changing much, unfortunately. It all seems pretty random, sometimes they are straight, sometimes the turn is huge, and other times my eyes are somewhere in-between.

Today Dr. Dan introduced a few new activities and brought back some old ones.

Yoked Prism

I used the yoked prisms daily for months, but I haven’t for a while. Today I wore them while walking up and down a fancy sloped balance beam. I felt like I was able to adjust more quickly to the changes happening around me while I was walking and changing the prism.

Slap Tap
This activity is a great one for multitasking! Each symbol represents either left arm, right arm, left leg or right leg. I have to verbally say the body part while I either stomp my foot or slap my side with the correct hand. I did pretty well until we added the metronome. The hard part for me is making sure that I keep both eyes focused the whole time. I start getting competitive and suppress so that I can do it more easily.

VTS4

We worked near and far again today. I don’t know if there was really too much of a difference, I feel like things have gotten a little stagnant in this area. I’m still doing well, but my scores aren’t really changing and what I’m seeing isn’t really getting that much more 3D looking. I am so curious to know if it will change once I have surgery, I guess there is only one way to find out.

Gem Vectograph

I haven’t done the gem in so long and I feel like I have lost so much of my ability to see the space and the floating ring. It’s like I need to do every activity, every day, to maintain progress. It feels like an impossible feat to keep moving forward in all of the different areas. Again, I really hope that the surgery will help with that progression.

Homework

1. Slap Tap – Say the body part out loud while tapping that body part. Use a metronome at 45-55 bpm to keep the rhythm.
2. Red Green Viewing- Use the red/green film on top of the iPad with red/green glasses and work on fusing the movie/game into one big screen that is connected.
3. Gem Vectograph- Relax and try to expand ZOSA instead of focusing on just the ring. Use a ball or other object to help see the depth.
4. Head Turns- While look in the mirror, move head L/R, Up/Down, Side/side and try to keep both eyes straight and engaged.