Strabismus
The eye condition I thought I’d left behind
Binoculars have never worked for me. Not when I was a kid, teen or most of my adult life. If I close one eye then it works, kinda. I didn’t think much about this, I figured it was like some people can hula hoop and some can’t. I’m aware binoculars don’t work, I’m seldom around them, I don’t even pick them up and try anymore. I know they don’t work for me.
If I hadn’t isolated the binoculars situation and I put it together with a myrid of other vision issues that I had, then maybe I would have figured this out before I was in my upper 40’s. I had eye surgery for a lazy left eye as a baby. My mom can’t quite remember, but she thinks it was maybe both eyes, could have been just one. I remember the sticky patches, ripping my eyebrows out until I was about 4 years old. If my eye condition ever came up in conversation, I would joke that it’s a wonder I have any eyebrows left at all, and then follow it up with my party trick of crossing in only my left eye. Which many eye doctors have told me to stop doing (maybe it would get stuck?). My earliest memories are of my kind eye doctor trying to test the vision of a toddler who couldn’t yet read or identify letters on an eye chart. She would hold up a card with a capitol letter E and turn it one way then another and I would have to show her with my hand which way it was going. There was also a little bunny on the end of one of the wooden spoons she’d cover my eye with and she would show me it at the end of my visit. I have my glasses from after my surgery, they are the smallest pair I’ve ever seen. There was a black elastic strap to keep them on my head. I did not like that.
I have worn glasses my whole life. Aside from the binoculars, those ink blobs from the long gone comics in the newspaper that are supposed to look like something when you bring them closer to your nose never worked for me either. People would see a butterfly, or a tree, I saw-the same ink blob. How in the world would it change into a butterfly-weird. I dismissed this. I also dismissed that I got a lot of flat tires. When my kids were little, I would often say when they were climbing all over me especially near my eyes that they were too close and I’d crane my neck back to stop seeing two “different angles” of them at the same time. Each of these things were minor enough that I dismissed them. I assumed they could be related to my eye issues as a baby, and into denial I went.
That all changed the summer of 2019. As an actress, I was taping some intro/slate shots at a studio. We did 17 different takes and I watched them when I got home. I have no idea if the slates were good, because I couldn’t stop looking at my left eye. It had drifted to the left and downward and stayed there. What the hell was going on? I was so afraid I looked stupid, I was so ashamed I couldn’t move it back to the centre. Immediately I made an appoinmtnent with an Ophthalmologist. I told her my history and she said I could have more surgery to correct it again or I could try Vision Therapy. I did not want any more eye surgery so I began researching VT. It was expensive, my insurance didn’t cover it and no one I contacted could really give me a straight answer about how many sessions I would need. No one I knew had tried it. A few offered an assessment.
I put this on the back burner until that fall, when I scraped the passenger’s side of my car going around a concrete block in my parking garage. It was a huge dent and quite scratched up. I was mad at myself. How could I have misjudged the space? What if it had been a person. Less than a week later I hit it again in the exact same spot. So I emailed Toronto Vision Therapy Clinic that stated that Dr. April Eryou was on the Vision Therapy Board of Canada. January of 2020 I had my $300 assessment. It was two hours long. The first hour was easy, puzzles, mazes etc. It felt easy and I knew I was doing great. The last test with this therapist, Maxine, was a rectangular piece of yellow paper called a VO Star. It had two verticle rows of small signs and symbols in identical lines but one each to the far left and far right. She handed me two pencils and when that test began (no time frame-just complete the task) I would place my pencils on the same symbol on each side and simultaniouly draw a line from the symbol to the middle. Sounds easy right? I had to look through lenses to do this. So I obviously saw the paper first and then she put it behind the lenses where it clips into place and I leaned in to start drawing my lines. There was problem, a big problem. I didn’t see two lines, I only saw one. It was in the middle. Where was the line on the left? Why weren’t my eyes working? I stepped away and started fighting tears. I told my VT Maxine something wasn’t right. She was so kind and tried to be gentle. She asked what I saw. Told me to take a moment and a deep breath and I could try again. That did not help. There was one line and only one pencil showed up for me. I knew there were two lines, and two pencils on the paper, but I could only see one, it was the right side, but it was in the middle, somehow. I broke down crying in that office. What was the matter with my eye sight?
Pulling myself together, I was no longer crying, but internally I was extremely upset. I went in to see the doctor. She explained that I was seeing the world monocularly (using just one eye, my right eye) and that my brain subconsciously decided it was easier to shut off my left eye which is why it had started drifting to the left and downward. I most likely had never seen the world binocularily-where your brain makes one picture out of the view from your two eyes. After that it was a bit of a blur as she explained that vision therapy would help retrain my brain to start using my left eye again. It would also train my eye muscles to get stronger so that I could better control them at my will. The topics of possible eye surgery and double vision left me in more tears. It was a stark realisation that my eye problems were back and I had some serious choices ahead of me.
Finding out that you only see the world with one eye and one view when you believed you’d seen it the way most people do is shocking. My denial was shattered. Binocular vision where your eyes blend both views into one 3D vision that I had never seen was a lot to ponder. I knew that eye surgery was a last resort. It would fix the cosmetic eye drift, but it wouldn’t touch the binocular vision part. I was curious, how did everyone else see the world?
Strabismus is the medical term for the eye condition I have. I knew this as I had never paid for an eye exam, I was in the catagory of people who have one of a possible eight eye conditions for which Ontario will pay for your eye exam. I learned later that if I had not addressed this is some way, over time, my eye and brain disconnection could become permanent rendering me legally blind in that eye. How was I just learning this now?
Imagine finding out that what you though was a cosmetic problem with your eyes, turned out to be a serious issue with your vision. The two potential answers surgery or a year or more of therapy. I did not want more surgery. Would this affect my ability to drive? My independence? What would you do?
I chose Vision Therapy. One to two years of weekly sessions would be needed. How well I did would be up to me. I had eye exercises to do five times a week. I could make excuses or I could just do the exercises, they weren’t hard and I was paying for this. I was extremely motivated and did all that was asked of me and I was happy to have the chance. They were my eyes, my vision and I was going to make it the very best I could. The 40+ years that I saw eye doctors, not once did any of them ever suggest either more surgery or vision therapy until now.
So week after week, during a pandemic, sometimes over FaceTime, I did my vision therapy. I’d do a few exercises increasing the difficulty level as we went and then changing out the exercises as directed by my VT depending on how I was doing. Forcing my brain to use my left eye. One day, at the office, Maxine put a transparency called a Vectogram, up on the wall and told me to watch it. She moved it and it seemed to leap off the wall and float right in front of my eyes. This was binocular vision. I knew what a panoramic picture was, but while driving on the Gardiner one sunny day, I was suddenly looking at this huge sky, huge field of vision, I was smiling and laughing. I’d never seen this view. My left eye was in the game and the world looked different in the best way.
I’m finishing up my vision therapy, just one year in. No eye surgery, whew. No patches and my eye only drifts when I’m tired, sick or very stressed. I can feel if it’s off to the left and at will I can make it straight. Maybe one day soon, I’ll happen across a pair of binoculars, I can’t wait to try them out.
