Fixing my gaze

A personal journey to regain my stereoscopic vision

Stereoscopic vision (coordinated vision with two forward-facing eyes) is something we all take for granted. I'm working to get mine back.

If you see me somewhere just looking around and you wonder what I'm looking at, maybe this page will help explain.

In case you're asking yourself if creating web pages like this is difficult for someone like me, who has strabismus, don't worry, it's not! As a graphic designer and web designer, this is where I have been fortunate. I may not be able to design web sites with "one hand tied behind my back", but I can do it with one eye! It's for the rest of the activities of my life that I'm trying to get my stereo vision back.

In October of 2009 I discovered the book "Fixing My Gaze" and found out that I might have a chance at regaining normal binocular vision. Here is a picture of the personalized inscription by Dr. Aleta Gong, my doctor.

Hopefully someone who needs it will find this page. I can explain better with pictures, using Photoshop, than I can with words! I'm just putting this out there. If you want to talk to me, please use my professional contact page.

Home therapy

I am faithfully doing the homework that my vision therapist gave me. In fact, for someone as dedicated as I am, it's sometimes hard for me to give it a rest. My favorite home therapy techniques is "saccades" - pictured below.

A dollar-store frogs hangs from the ceiling where I can lie down and watch it move back and forth. This teaches my eyes to track, that is, follow movement smoothly.

Special thank you

I owe so much to my best friend, Macintosh, the good little wiener dog, who has helped me and is still helping me through this time. Oh yeah, and thanks to the people, too!

Dogs don't care if you're having a bad day. She has never said, "dad, why are your eyes so bloodshot?"

Healthsouth, Novacare and Accent Eye Care & Sports Vision. It seemed to surprise them that I followed their instructions. Hey, that's what you do with a golf pro!

When your eyes don't agree with your brain, it produces motion sickness, which causes nausea. Luckily, I discovered a great over-the-counter medication that really works - Nauzene - available at Walgreens, KMart, Walmart and Target. And many other fine stores, I'm sure!

Recovery from brain injury

In 2003 I had an accident which actually damaged part of my brain. My cerebrum (where your higher-level brain functions are) was unaffected, which is why I was able to watch what was happening to me. Aside from the other inconveniences, like learning to walk and talk normally again, I developed nystagmus is the left field of both eyes, which was worse in the left eye.

I taught myself to compensate (called dampening) using a head tilt which helped me receive information mostly through my right eye. Four years later, in 2007, the left eye began to come back. But it was a mess - because it didn't want to agree with the right eye! My vision seemed to be actually getting worse and I seriously contemplated learning braille for the first time. But I'm getting better!

Updated September 2, 2010

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This page was designed to help it be accessible to people with visual disabilities. If you're a web designer and would like to know more about designing barrier-free, and still do a good-looking site, please contact me.

August 1, 2010
1080p

When I bought the TV that I have now, I got it on faith. It was a smokin' deal through Amazon, free delivery on a 1080p High Definition TV with a free upsampling DVD player thrown in.

In case you don't know it, there are two types of High Definition TVs, 750 and 1080. The higher number has higher resolution, hence sharper picture. The "p", by the way, stands for "progressive", but it's really just the numbers that you need to know. Old-fashioned TVs, by comparison, were 480. So a 750 High Definition TV is plenty sharp. A 1080 is wildly sharp. Of course, when I bought it, all of this clarity was wasted on my blurry eyes. But now that I am seeing better every day, and it is awesome!

July 19, 2010
Rapid eye movement

There's an old expression that sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is just an oncoming freight train! Unfortunately, as I conquer old problems, new ones seem to appear. Of course, they were there all the time, but I am now aware of them only because of the other problems becoming solved. A very mysterious thing is now becoming clear that my vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) or oculovestibular reflex, is going to need to be retrained. That is the built-in "steady cam" system for your brain. The best way to think of this is to think of any movie you've ever seen where the images shifts and jerks around whenever the camera is moved. Pretty annoying! In movies, cameras have special devices that steady the images, or the camera is mounted on a system that moves it smoothly. In your head, you have the same choices - you can either force yourself to remain in a smooth visual position, by moving your body and your eyes slowly, or you can get your built-in "steady-cam" working. Your VOR system takes the visual jerks out as you walk, move your head, or move your eyes. If this system is impaired (think of the last time you had too may margaritas), your view of the world is not smooth, but is shaky. Like any neuromuscular system, it works on demand. That's the old "use it or lose it" thing. I will demand!

July 16, 2010
New lenses for my glasses

I just got new lenses for my glasses and things look better! Both eyes have changed. The left eye is weaker and the right eye is stronger. This will help my stereoscopic vision as it already seems like the eyes aren't "fighting" so much, and are tending to agree more. I realize that it will take a few days to get used to the lenses so I will practice! Interesting enough, in this photo I just took of my eyes you can see that I am still doing a head tilt, even though I am not aware of it at all. I will probably always do a bit of this. Hopefully it will make people think that I am thoughtful, that's all.

July 15, 2010
Paper books vs. electronic books

I am enjoying my new Kobo ereader. I have decided that I will either sell or give away my "paper books" and rely entirely on "electronic books". I've had some difficulty explaining to friends why I prefer reading on an ereader instead on a paper book. The fact is, the differences are very slight, and lean in the direction that my vision likes. Actually, I started "ereading" in 2003, using my Palm Pilot with pdf files, and loved it right away. After a while I just got fed up with the screen being so very tiny and the fact that I was using a device that cost $200 even back then to do something as simple as reading. After I had gone through two of them and needed to purchase a third one to stay current in about 2006, I just stopped.

I really haven't read much in the three years since then, in spite of trying every once in a while to read a paper book, just to find it ignored because of the frustration it caused me. And I really, really didn't like the proprietary way that the Kindle worked. I figured that some day there would be a simple reading device with an open platform. The Kobo is that device, and I am reading again! The screen size is perfect, the font size is perfect. The e-ink technology needs to improve a little for better contrast and the firmware needs to be refined to speed up the booting-up process. But it will happen! Excuse me, I have to get back to my book now.

June 21, 2010
My vision is improving

I had an eye check-up on Saturday and my vision is improving. Although it cost me some big bucks to buy the new lenses, I am pleased with the change. The improvement is two steps down. Pretty cool, huh? Anyway, in the meantime, while I wait for the lenses to come in, I am going to try to minimize my use of the existing glasses.

If you've ever looked through someone else's glasses, especially if they're too strong, you know what a headache it can give you. Hopefully the lighter prescription will be lighter on my sore eyes, too!

June 8, 2010
Side-Effects

If you've ever been "sidelined", that is, "on the bench" or "out of the game" you know that it sucks. But the side-effects can be amazing! Speaking for myself, this has happened to me twice in my life and the side-effects have been nothing short of spectacular. The first time I was "taken out of the game" at work was in my twenties, when I was recovering from a tonsillectomy. My boss told me to come into work but to "hide out" in the back area and learn the new computer system. Since I spent the rest of my career working on computers, this was a pretty cool "side effect"!

More recently, this issue with my vision has kept me close to my computer and I have really gotten to be a "wizard" with the latest technology. You name it, if it's in cyberspace, I am now comfortable with it! Not just web design, but social media, ebay, Amazon and lots more. So don't underestimate the power of side-effects. This is all gonna work out.

May 31, 2010
Esophoria

Personally, I take comfort in learning about things. To me, ignorance is not bliss. I am a student of many things and always consider myself a beginner. To begin learning about something, it is best to begin by learning what it called. That in itself is not knowledge of it, but it is your first step on the ladder. I am learning about "esophoria" or "base-in". To put it more simply, it's the ability to move your eyes outward. It is divergence, the opposite of convergence. It's the opposite of crossing your eyes, which is kind of hard to imagine. It's like trying to see the two walls next to you at the same time, you know, being "wall-eyed".

So, apparently it's "esphoria" that is plaguing me these days. I can converge easily, especially at this distance - a computer screen, but diverging is difficult. So, just looking out of the window at the clouds going by is painful. I must work on this!

April 1, 2010
In repair

In the last few months when friends have asked me if my eyesight has improved, I really don't know what to say. That the visual therapy is helping is definite, but you really wouldn't know it from looking at me. I'm in repair. So, I'm doing a lot less than I did a couple of years ago. The best analogy that I've found is that instead of walking along next to a bike with a flat tire, I am on the side of the road, repairing it. So, my forward progress has stopped for now

But I am ultimately hopeful. You could also compare it to stopping to take a stone out of your shoe, or stopping to sharpen an axe while you are cutting down a tree. I sometimes refer to this as "non-linear" improvement. Personally, I've always had this mindset. As a Graphic Designer, I have always stopped to refine my skills, learn new software, etc. It slows things down for a while, but when I get moving, look out!

March 25, 2010
Your eyes are the windows to your soul

Your eyes convey a lot of meaning to the people around you. You can easily show displeasure by giving someone "a look" (sometimes referred to as "the hairy eyeball"). And you can show tenderness or concern with your eyes. People look at your eyes to try to understand what you are thinking. And most people will never be able to understand someone with visual difficulties who is just using their eyes to see properly and has no intention of conveying any meaning. If you have suffered a vestibular/cerebral injury, like me, and are learning to regain balance and vision, it will be very strange to the people around you. Even your friends, who understand your issues, will have difficulty interpreting your gaze correctly. For example, if you walk past someone without looking directly at them, even briefly, it is known as "cutting them", which is seen to be as intentionally rude. The workaround for this, of course, is to avoid situations where you must walk and look at the people around you. And I have been successfully doing workarounds for years, but I want to fix this. Practicing this means I must fix my gaze on the world AND on the people around me. A complexity that I hadn't expected!

March 16, 2010
First missed session

I couldn't go to my therapy session yesterday, the eyes just weren't ready, so I did a recovery day.

March 1, 2010
Eyes have muscles

Eyes have muscles, lots of them. Like all muscles, after a period of neglect, they don't want to go back to work. Right now, my eye muscles are angry at me about "base-in" (divergence) and "base-out" (convergence). After my accident, my eyes could only fix on a particular plane (see the article below about planes) and I was pretty happy about that. To move to another plane, your eyes need to converge or diverge, which takes muscles. If you are staring at one plane, like I am now at this computer screen, these types of muscles are not in use. When I look away, or look more closely at something, they are. This is why, right after my accident, I could ride in a car, apparently seeing OK, but apparently being unable to see the hot air balloon in the distance. In fact, I was not wanting to see it - as it took so much muscle power that it was wildly uncomfortable. But like all muscles, eye muscles will adapt and strengthen after use and a period of recovery.

February 25, 2010
Seeing multiple planes

I am becoming more aware of multiple planes. In it's simplest terms, it would be foreground, middle ground and background. But there are an infinite number of planes in your visual field. To view these different planes, your eyes have to move. They move inward to see close up and outward to see in the distance. The technical terms are Esophoria - a tendency for the eyes to turn INWARD , but with effort can remain straight (convergence appearance) and Exophoria - a condition where one or both eyes turn OUTWARD (divergence appearance).

February 16th, 2010
Beginning part 2 of Vision Therapy

It's been two months since my first part of my vision therapy ended. And I hadn't realized how lazy I had gotten during that break! Tonight I've put my eye patch over my right eye (which is the stronger one) to help force the left work to work harder. In fact, I am updating this page right now while wearing the patch. I suppose that a parrot on my shoulder would help. I noticed that the left eye began to fatigue and redden just about right away, which means that it has been "goofing off" for a long time now. OK! Back to work!

February 14, 2010
A Major Jump in Visual Actuity

I can't even begin to describe it, but something just did a major "ratchet up" on my 3-D vision yesterday. Since I've been monocular for so many years, this is still pretty weird. As I've mentioned before, after my accident my brain learned to compensate my lack of coordinated vision by largely ignoring the left side of my visual field. As my left peripheral vision improves, it sometimes comes as a real surprise to me. My reflexes, which were always fine, kick in before the rational part of my brain does. In other words, I jump. I just need to not be standing next to a second-story railing when this happens! And this is where I was yesterday, at Arrowhead mall.

February 4, 2010
Watching Avatar in 3-D

I approached watching Avatar in 3-D like an athletic event. I really had no idea what three hours of making my eyes and brain focus on seeing 3-D would do. The day before I rested my eyes a lot. I went to the 10:45 a.m. showing as my eyes are better in the morning. My friend Mikey drove. I'm sure he would have carried me out if I needed it! There is no doubt that I can see in stereo (3-D). But it is very, very hard to do. Even for a normally-sighted person, watching a 3-D movie can be a challenge. For me it was, indeed, an athletic event. After the movie, I was very wobbly. Mikey and I walked over to a place to get burgers. By the time I got home, I was exhausted. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again in a couple of hours, I was better. Not great, but better. I'm glad I did it, but I don't want to do it again. I'd like to see Avatar again, but I will wait until I can see it on a DVD.

January 30, 2010
Disability or Super-Power?

I saw something very strange last night. The tail-lights of a car looked like this (image on left) on a car as I followed it. I could actually see the pulses of light from the tail lights, which are L.E.D. (Light-emitting diode) on a Cadillac CTS. Most cars don't have this. Whether seeing this is a super-power or a disability I can't say. Either way, it's distracting and I'd rather not see it. Other than that, my night vision is the best it's been in years, razor-sharp. Much of what is troubling me now is the incredible increase in information that my eyes and brain are taking in. It's overwhelming. I must get used to it again. It's been so limited for so many years, it's like stepping out of a dark cave into the light of day again. It hurts, but it's wonderful.

January 27, 2010
Pain and getting the world back

Every once in a while these days a friend will ask me, "So, how are your eyes?" My friends know that I'm getting vision therapy so it's a polite question. Unfortunately, I'm unable to give a polite reply. A question like that makes me say, "My eyes hurt like crazy. It's a terrible, burning pain and a feeling like I've been hit in the face by a baseball bat". I'm so sorry, but it's just like someone has pulled a cork from my emotions with a question like that. The real question, you may ask, is why I put up with the pain. After my accident I was prescribed with all types of effective pain medication, including Vicodin. I did use them, and yes, they took away the pain, but they took away the world, too. So I've made a choice. I want the world back. And pain is the price I'm willing to pay.

January 8th, 2010
Seeing in multiple planes

I am noticing multiple planes. That is, if Macintosh (the good little wiener dog) is on the front plane, the rocks in the ocean are on the back plane. In addition to a sharper focus on the front plane, there is the double image of the back plane, which is normal, caused by the fact that we have two eyes. This helps us better understand the three-dimensional space we are in.

Of course, there are an infinite amount of planes in your visual field, not just "front and back". Your ability to focus (or fixate) on those planes as your brain makes the other planes less important, gives you the ability to navigate smoothly through space.

When I switch my focus from the front plane to the back plane, the background comes into focus and Macintosh, the good little wiener dog, blurs and doubles. If you have two working eyes, this is what happens for you, but you really don't notice it. I am looking at this all of the time now, and that's part of the reason my eyes are shot by early evening. This uses muscles that for me have been unused for literally many years!

The most difficult task for me is to move through a space with multiple planes that are continually shifting their position forward, backward and side to side. Yes, crowds of people.

A single visual plane task is the easiest for me. This computer screen, for example, or watching a movie.

January 8th, 2010
Stereoscopic vision for driving. I mean, really driving.

I have always loved to drive. After my accident, I relied on vision from only one eye and although it was difficult and I was self-conscious about it, I could drive OK. That is, my world view was clear and my vision was 20-20. I can see the traffic lights, the cars around me, gauge distance and read signs perfectly well. Actually, pretty darn good, I'm told. But I know that the joy of driving is missing. In order to enjoy driving on a road like the one pictured, you need more than just basic vision, you need stereopsis. I never realized that I had this or how important it is. Anyone who has ever ridden a motorcycle or a sports car along a road like this know what I'm talking about. I can go place-to-place perfectly well so I have nothing to complain about. But I want this back! I can still feel it. And I miss it.

January 5th, 2010 - learning to control the power

If you saw the movie "Iron Man" you may remember that Tony Stark had some difficulties controlling his new iron man suit. Stereoscopic and peripheral vision may not seem like "super powers", but they are! When these super powers started returning to me last year I was taken by surprise. So, I am finding out that there are two steps to this type of recovery - 1) regaining your "super power" and 2) controlling it.

January 3rd, 2010, three weeks after the end of two-month vision therapy

My vision to the center and top right is perfect now. Full stereopsis has returned - and it is quite beautiful! On the left (especially the far left) and bottom portion of my field of vision my eyes are not in agreement. The images are doubled, but not blurred, and I can focus by bringing my head around - although I'm trying not to! Unfortunately, I tend to hit the ball off to my left, so it will be a while before I can play golf again!

Vision test after two months of therapy - December 14th, 2009

The emphasis has been on teaching the left eye to track, which has been successful. Note that the improvement is only in the upper half of the left eye field of vision.

Vision test before therapy - October 8th, 2009

October 8th, 2009. Note that the left eye is unable to track. The right eye has compensated.

2007 - Walking around Target

This is a Photoshop image that I created in 2007 to show how things looked to me. This is without dampening, trying to see out of two eyes. You have to imagine the constant movement (from the nystagmus).

2005,
Macintosh, the good little wiener dog, comes into my life

I had found so much comfort in Leon (on the right) that my friends convinced me to get my own wiener dog. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to properly care for her, but I did. I named her Macintosh, after the computer, of course, and also after the dog in the P.G. Wodehouse stories.

2004, Learning to compensate

By 2004 I was well on my way to learning the bad habit of tilting my head so I could see out of my good eye. I was teaching myself to ignore the conflicting information from the left eye. Here I am with Leon, who had been kind enough to visit me many times at the rehab.

2003, just lucky to be alive

2003, a few days after I got out of rehab at Healthsouth.

This page was designed to help it be accessible to people with visual disabilities. If you're a web designer and would like to know more about designing barrier-free, and still do a good-looking site, please contact me.