Friends, family, countrymen, lend me your ear
Our trip to the low vision clinic at the MAB was bittersweet. The good news is that his vision isn’t low enough to be considered ‘low.’ The bad news is that this is simply a budgetary issue; Medicare won’t cover the cost of adaptive equipment because his acuity and peripheral vision are not ‘low’ enough to qualify.
The assessment took 3 hours. Gilly was handled with kid gloves, and the equipment and expertise was state of the art. We discovered that there is a certain range, peripherally, that is ‘blind’ to Gilly on his right side, which makes sense, because the tumor is on the left. I noticed recently that he does not notice when I enter the room unless I make a sound loud enough for him to hear and notice, so this finding did not surprise me. We were given tips as to where to sit when viewing something and how to hold things to improve visibility.
Gilly was given some text to read to test out how well he functions, but this placed tremendous pressure on him; he never enjoyed reading, let aloe doing it out loud in front of an audience. I suggested that perhaps having him read is not the best tactic, and mentioned his love for tools. She asked the OT (of sorts; not sure of the exact title) to look around for some tools, and lo and behold they drummed some up. Gilly looked at the screw driver and said, “It’s a Phillips. I knew then and there that they were now on the right track. He relaxed for the remainder of the examination.
Gilly vision fluctuated during the 3 hour visit. The optometrist demonstrated this by asking him to look at a dot and tell her how many spots he sees. He said, “One.” She proceeded to tax his eye muscles for a moment or two with a black utensil that looks like a spoon, and then had him look at the dot again. “Now I see two,” he revealed. She explained that it would be foolhardy to rush into filling yet another prescription for glasses or prisms, because his vision is not stable enough. She said that the prism he already has is directly opposite to what he needs at the moment (upside down, in fact), but that too could change.
We left with a pair of very strong magnifiers for working with small utensils (like tools), a pair of sunglasses to cut the light out completely when outdoors since light seems to bother him a great deal, and a phone number for an ophthalmologist who happens to be covered by Medicare. Dr. Wise runs a private practice, and we may be back and forth a fair bit over the next while, depending on what transpires, so it could become quite costly. She highly recommended the name she gave me, and I feel confident she knows her business.
It was heartwarming to be greeted by our friend Judy who works down the hall. It’s always reassuring to see a familiar, friendly face amidst the sea of professionals that we encounter these days.
Needless to say, my day was spent catching up on what work I had assigned myself for the afternoon (I just finished, actually, and it’s 11:06). There’s too much to do in so little time. If you are one of those who called this afternoon, or evening, please excuse my brevity. I’m treading water these days trying to keep from drowning in my laundry, dishes, college preparations and most of all intense emotions.
After about 3 ½ hours sleep on the couch while I furiously shuffled papers around trying to make sense out of the complex puzzle I have to solve for fieldwork coordination, I asked, “So, did you try the new magnifiers?” “They’re no good,” he announced. I heaved a sigh and reminded him that we can return them if he finds them useless, but he ought to give them a chance. They may take getting used to. That’s what I said (as calmly as I could muster at the moment). I felt something quite different; I wanted to scream, cry, stomp and break down. But I held back until now. Sorry to have to lean on all of you this way, but you, my collective audience, are elected to be my sounding board. It’s a better place to vent, because Gilly doesn’t get burned. He has more than enough to deal with. He rarely asks to read the blog these days, and frankly, I have no time to regurgitate. Once is enough. Thanks for lending an ear.
Tomorrow I will dash off to work until noon, when I meet Gilly back at the hospital for 2 appointments back to back. I hope all goes smoothly on all fronts.
The assessment took 3 hours. Gilly was handled with kid gloves, and the equipment and expertise was state of the art. We discovered that there is a certain range, peripherally, that is ‘blind’ to Gilly on his right side, which makes sense, because the tumor is on the left. I noticed recently that he does not notice when I enter the room unless I make a sound loud enough for him to hear and notice, so this finding did not surprise me. We were given tips as to where to sit when viewing something and how to hold things to improve visibility.
Gilly was given some text to read to test out how well he functions, but this placed tremendous pressure on him; he never enjoyed reading, let aloe doing it out loud in front of an audience. I suggested that perhaps having him read is not the best tactic, and mentioned his love for tools. She asked the OT (of sorts; not sure of the exact title) to look around for some tools, and lo and behold they drummed some up. Gilly looked at the screw driver and said, “It’s a Phillips. I knew then and there that they were now on the right track. He relaxed for the remainder of the examination.
Gilly vision fluctuated during the 3 hour visit. The optometrist demonstrated this by asking him to look at a dot and tell her how many spots he sees. He said, “One.” She proceeded to tax his eye muscles for a moment or two with a black utensil that looks like a spoon, and then had him look at the dot again. “Now I see two,” he revealed. She explained that it would be foolhardy to rush into filling yet another prescription for glasses or prisms, because his vision is not stable enough. She said that the prism he already has is directly opposite to what he needs at the moment (upside down, in fact), but that too could change.
We left with a pair of very strong magnifiers for working with small utensils (like tools), a pair of sunglasses to cut the light out completely when outdoors since light seems to bother him a great deal, and a phone number for an ophthalmologist who happens to be covered by Medicare. Dr. Wise runs a private practice, and we may be back and forth a fair bit over the next while, depending on what transpires, so it could become quite costly. She highly recommended the name she gave me, and I feel confident she knows her business.
It was heartwarming to be greeted by our friend Judy who works down the hall. It’s always reassuring to see a familiar, friendly face amidst the sea of professionals that we encounter these days.
Needless to say, my day was spent catching up on what work I had assigned myself for the afternoon (I just finished, actually, and it’s 11:06). There’s too much to do in so little time. If you are one of those who called this afternoon, or evening, please excuse my brevity. I’m treading water these days trying to keep from drowning in my laundry, dishes, college preparations and most of all intense emotions.
After about 3 ½ hours sleep on the couch while I furiously shuffled papers around trying to make sense out of the complex puzzle I have to solve for fieldwork coordination, I asked, “So, did you try the new magnifiers?” “They’re no good,” he announced. I heaved a sigh and reminded him that we can return them if he finds them useless, but he ought to give them a chance. They may take getting used to. That’s what I said (as calmly as I could muster at the moment). I felt something quite different; I wanted to scream, cry, stomp and break down. But I held back until now. Sorry to have to lean on all of you this way, but you, my collective audience, are elected to be my sounding board. It’s a better place to vent, because Gilly doesn’t get burned. He has more than enough to deal with. He rarely asks to read the blog these days, and frankly, I have no time to regurgitate. Once is enough. Thanks for lending an ear.
Tomorrow I will dash off to work until noon, when I meet Gilly back at the hospital for 2 appointments back to back. I hope all goes smoothly on all fronts.
posted by Gilly at 10:26 PM
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