Page 32 - BOAF Journal 1 2012:2707

Behavioral Optometry BOAF Volume1 Number1 2012
Views - Robin Benoit
Jillian‘s Story
How Vision Therapy changed one little girl‘s life
It all started with the letter P. It was that one special day in preschool when the focus was on the letter P. They planned to wear pajamas, paint pictures in purple and pink, eat popcorn and pret- zels and pretend to be pirates. Perfect!
I had dropped my daughter Jillian off at school and about two hours later received a call from her teacher. She called to say that Jillian had „freaked out“ in class. The teacher explained that the class had been pretending to be pirates and when she put a patch on Jillian‘s eye, she had thrown her hands out in front of her as if trying to reach out for something and fallen to the floor screaming for help.
We went immediately to see Jillian‘s pediatri- cian. He was skeptical, as we had not noticed any vision issues with Jillian, but he said we would check it out. I stood with Jillian at one end of a long hallway while our doctor stood by the eye chart at the other end. A nurse covered one of Jilli- an‘s eyes and she read the chart with no problem. Then, the nurse covered the other eye.
„MOMMY, HELP ME“
My heart nearly stopped as Jillian instantly threw her hands up in front of her and started call- ing out for me. „Mommy, Mommy, help me!“ I was standing right next to her within arms reach of her right shoulder. I spoke softly to her, telling her I was right there. She looked in my direction as if search- ing for me. I grabbed her hand and started to cry.
The doctor looked completely shocked. He said,“Jillian, can you see the eye chart on the wall?“ She moved her head all around as if search- ing the sky and ground and everywhere in be-
tween. Our doctor then said,“Jillian, can you see me?“ and she stood very still and soft murmured, „I hear you.“
The doctor left us in the examination room and called to get her in immediately at the children‘s hospital. I was terrified. What was wrong with my baby girl? Had she always been blind in one eye? If not, why was she not able to see-all of sudden- out of one eye? How could we have missed that?
A week later, the ophthalmologist told us that Jillian had amblyopia. I had never heard the word but I soon learned that amblyopia is „partial or complete loss of vision in one eye caused condi- tions that affect the normal development of vision.“* With amblyopia, the brain favors one strong eye over the weaker one. The weak eye is eventually ignored by the brain, and therefore the brain cells related to eyesight do not mature nor- mally. Amblyopia is the most common cause of monocular blindness, partial or complete blindness in one eye. It affects an estimated two to three percent of children in the United States.
So, yes, Jillian had basically become blind in one eye because her brain had all but ceased communicating with the weak eye. The doctor ex- plained that there is no surgery to correct amblyo- pia. The most common treatment is to force the brain to start using the „bad“ eye by putting a patch over the „good“ eye.
The best we could expect
Jillian wore an eye patch for ten to eleven hours a day for three years. Her limited vision led us to the decision to home school during that time. At the end of third grade, our ophthalmologist said that Jillian had made as much progress as she could with the eye patch. The vision in her weak eye had improved to 20/40 with the assistance of
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