EYE Doctors!

As you may have noticed in a few of Roo's pictures her eyes sometimes have had the tendency to turn out a bit, or look a bit off center. We had them checked by an ophthalmologist back when she was 2, we took her back every few months but kept hearing "looks fine, we'll keep an eye on it...see you in a few months." After 3 traumatic visits (poor scared little tiny 2-3yo Roo, gruff doctor, lack of communication/questions answered)...We set the intention to see if she outgrew it over the next year or so and to definitely get them checked out again when she was five, and for sure to get a second opinion.

 Well, she turned 5 in December and her eyes were still turning out, not all the time- but it was quite noticeable if she was low on sleep, tired, or had been working hard with her school work. And as she put it "her eyes kept cramping." So off to the Eye Doctor we went.

This time an optometrist who specializes in Vision Therapy. Roo did a fantastic job! The exam took about 40 minutes and he did more testing than I've ever seen an optometrist do...

After all the testing the doctor concluded that she has not been using her right eye, that she is near sighted, and that because she doesn't have binocular vision she struggles to see more than one large shape at a time. He said it is great that we're doing this now because she is starting to read (she can sound out most 3 letter words- go Roo!) and as the words get longer and smaller she would be having to work so much harder to figure it all out.
 At this point he is not recommending glasses for her because he wants to focus on getting her eyes stronger through therapy/exercises. They focus on healing the eyes, not just putting a band aide on it. Yay!

We're excited about the Vision Therapy Center (10 minutes from home!), we love that they don't just slap glasses on you and start the traditional "patching x hours a day" to fix the problem. Their therapy program is full body with a focus on  strengthening your eyes, brain, really your WHOLE body to work together correctly. When an eye is weak the other eye works harder, which means that side of the body works harder, which makes the whole body works harder. In her therapy sessions Roo is given "games" and challenges that work her entire body.

So Roo goes every Tuesday morning for 30 minute therapy with a vision therapist (who is so sweet and Roo loves!) and she will also be doing "at home therapy" daily once we get the last bit of money together to buy the program (we don't have vision coverage and this was an unexpected thing) - hopefully in the next week we'll be good to go with that and we'll see more and more improvements in Roo's eye functions.

She is such a bright and extremely smart person, I can't even imagine how far she'll go with her vision issues healed and nothing holding her back!

 Watch out world!

Oh and Ryan saw Dr. F too and he got new glasses...LOVE them!!!

So classy!