Day 31

This morning, Ryan had speech. He worked more on the brief about military greetings, rank and saluting. After speech, he met with a life skills therapist. Ryan had to pick one of his therapists to go to lunch with next Monday. He chose one of his speech therapists.

Ryan then had constraint induced therapy. He played connect four with a therapist using his left hand. In PT, he worked with the therapist more on the light gait.

Following Ryan's morning therapies, we (Ryan, his occupational therapist, and I) drove to Lincoln to go to a neuro-optomotrist. It ended up being a very long appointment. Lincoln is about 45 minutes away. We left at 11 a.m. and didn't get back until around 5:30 p.m. But, it was worth it.

The doctor was very thorough. He did a wide array of tests on Ryan's visual abilities. He tested Ryan's tracking and field of vision, along with all the basic eye exams. He determined that Ryan had double vision that varies depending on where he is directing his gaze (up, down, left, right, etc.). So, there is no one prescription of lenses that can fix Ryan's vision. Right now, the doctor is prescribing Ryan one set of glasses that will fix his double vision when he is looking at something straight ahead. So, basically, Ryan will have to turn his head to look at something for it to be clear.

Ryan will have to wear a piece of tape that restricts his vision in his right eye. This eye has an issue that causes the vision to be jumpy. He will also have to wear two pieces of black tape on the inner parts of the glasses (closest to his nose), to help his vision. But, he will only have to wear those black pieces of tape for 1-4 hours a day. And, they will eventually be phased out.

The doctor seemed confident with vision therapy, Ryan's vision will get better. :)