Jackson had his annual appointment at Lighthouse. Jackson has functional vision but he is considered to be Cortically Visually Impaired (CVI) due to his brain injury so he sees a low vision optometrist there. I am very happy with the doctor there. Before we started going there Jackson was seen by a different doctor. I am not exaggerating when I say I left that first doctor's appointment in tears (this was years ago, shortly after Jackson got out of rehab) he was so negative about his vision and future prognosis. The guy had no clue how to measure Jackson's vision and no clue about how to deal with people. This doctor is wonderful with him and has lots of very neat ways to figure out how well he is seeing.
So anyway, Jackson is about the same as he was last year. He still is slightly near sided (although it may possibly be less than he was last year). If he was getting worse she would recommend getting glasses for him again but he did not tolerate wearing them too well and the improvement would be minimal so she says it's ok for him not to have them.
His visual tracking is good, but his tracking items upwards is not as good as tracking items in the rest of the field of vision.
His eyes also still turn inward and outward, meaning they are not always working together as they should be. This is called esotropia. She says he seems to be pretty good about self correcting. If he consistently had an inward turn or an outward turn a surgeon may be able to help improve it, but since they both go both ways there is really no way to surgically correct it.
She mentioned wanting to do a test called visual evoked potential. This will help get a clearer understanding of just how well Jackson is seeing. She does not think he needs it now, but probably sometime in the next few years.
His overall eye health is very good.
So a good (but very long, as always) appointment. Not so good for Lee who was hanging with the babe at home. She took only a 5 minute nap and cried for two whole hours. Poor daddy!!
