Eyes

For those waiting for an update on our visit to the eye doctor,  I will give a short summary.   We went to the Lion's Eye Clinic at the U of MN and also had an interpreter there for us.   Ani did well with the very long exam,  except for putting the dilation drops in.   That was a fairly traumatic experience,  but they were able to do it anyhow and she did recover later. She also managed to tell Andrew she freaked out for the eye drops even though she did not want me to tell the boys about it.  : )

Good news is that her visual acuity is not as bad as previously reported and it is better than mine uncorrected (though with the shaking eyes) which explains how she gets around better than I expected.   

Bad news is that it looks like the cause is due to an optic nerve problem so we are not sure the degree of correction possible.   We are trying glasses to correct her astigmatism,  but there is no guarantee that they will work.   She also has to give them several months of wearing as the improvement will likely not be immediate.   She picked out purple glasses.(Hey! I thought she said she didn't like purple!)  We will get them in another week or so.

We will see how that goes, but will also pursue a second opinion most likely at Mayo Clinic first while also looking into possibilities that are fairly new to nystagmus patients through the University of California in Irvine. Some of these options might be more successful if nerve damage is not evident, but we will research it. In the meantime I will start pursuing an IEP (Individual Learning Plan) through the school district.   The low vision specialists come to each individual school as needed.