Back to the eye doctor

Randy had an appointment today with the eye doctor. He now has two eye doctors ~ the one seen here, which is the one that began treated him in Good Samaritan (Dr Baxstrom), and then the ones at the Harborview clinic. They have differing opinions on the necessity of prisms and eye exercises. We have continued seeing them both. I think as long as the prisms and eye exercises don't hurt Randy, they are definitely worth a try.

Dr Baxstrom examined Randy's double vision. It has been improving, but it is still there. To help, he applied what is called disposable prism, which is a tape-like device applied over the glasses. He said it can be removed or changed easily and can be doubled or tipled if necessary. It is the cost-effective way to go rather than having to continuously change the glasses as Randy's body heals. Dr Baxstrom said his goal is to reduce the double vision so that Randy can be weaned off of the prism glasses.

Dr Baxstrom advised Randy that he could go to every other day with doing his eye therapies and he introduced a new one, which is pictured above. The new one involves using string with colored beads. Randy is to focus far away, then on the bead within his hand's reach. If the focus is difficult or he sees two beads, he should touch the bead to get it down to one.

Dr Baxstrom said that Randy's tremors are called ataxia and often happens when the head and neck are held too rigidly and often when concentration levels are very high or when the eyes are moving out of their normal range. Some techniques to help are to 1. Look Softly 2. Breathe deeply 3. Relax 4. Let the task happen. I have noticed that he often gets these at night, right after we turn off the lights to go to sleep. I have been telling him at that time to do some deep breathing and I noticed that when he starts doing that, the shakes immediately stop.

One funny thing happened as I was writing the blog tonight. Randy kept trying to say the word "synonym"and it kept coming out as "cinnamon". I said it for him and he would try again, but it came out the same. All we could do was laugh! He did finally get it out, saying it very slowely.