So here is how the whole journey started. I was born on May 1st in the late 1980's. It was a rainy day (or so I am told. I don't really remember). Ok that seems a bit dramatic, let's see if we can reel it back in a little bit. The actual journey that would ultimately lead to me writing this blog began in 2001, the year I started high school. It's really weird to think about it being that long (trust me, I did the math twice).
It was a day like any other, my family and I were at the mall in Grand Junction. I was having an eye exam because I wanted contacts (lest my glasses appear nerdy to my new high school peers). I remember the eye doctor commenting about something and asked my mom to come take a look. Apparently he was showing her that my eyes didn't match up. What that meant and if it was a problem was not expressed, so we went on with our day. That year of high school progressed as any freshman year would. I didn't play any sports because I am a horrible athlete. I can't catch a ball to save my life.
During the middle of my sophomore year, my grades plummeted from a B average to F's in the span of about two weeks. Let me lay in some background info here. Ever since I was little I had troubles reading. My mom actually found out when I was in the 3rd grade that I didn't know how to read at all. I had actually manipulated and guess my way through 1st and 2nd grade reading. When 3rd grade came around my mom started home schooling us (something I don't think any of us enjoyed, including mom). But that left my mom with the task of teaching me how to read. To say that I was a stubborn little…. "angel" is no understatement. I just had the hardest time learning to read. I wasn't good at it, I fought it with mom and I generally would do anything to get out of it. But in time, I learned how to read but it was uncomfortable to do so and I was horribly bad at it. I would take me a few hours to read a chapter of a book, I would have to re-read a sentence multiple times just to understand it. But I learned how to limp along and when I went back into public school in the 8th grade I did ok. This "ok" extended through my freshman year. But when my sophomore year came I started really struggling and misreading everything at school.
During this same time I misread a schedule at work and missed a day. I had taken a trip to Grand Junction to go christmas shopping with some friends. As hard as I tried, I just could't read things correctly. Misreading my schedule did not go over well and it was then that my mom asked me if I though I was dyslexic. I admitted that the thought had crossed my mind. It was time to find out.
Ok, let me take a time out here and explain my hometown of Meeker, CO. This is important to understand the rest of the story. Meeker, is a small ranch and farm style town in the Northwestern corner of Colorado. It is almost dead center between Rifle, CO and Craig, CO. Meeker is known for its hunting. A lot of hunters come from all over the U.S. to hunt in and around Meeker (in fact, Meeker is full of hunters at this very moment). Its a small town where everyone knows everyone and everyone's business. It is a beautiful place and I tell people it's a wonderful place to live and raise a family. To better illustrate Meeker's small town(ness), the closest McDonald's, Starbucks, or Walmart is an hour away in each direction and by hour I mean "winding, deer infested mountain road" hour. Grand Junction, being only two hours away is the largest, closest city. Moving here from Denver when I was massive culture shock.
So it was time to find out whether I was dyslexic or not. There was an eye doctor who's practice was in Craig, the town north of Meeker, but two days out of the week, he would come to an office in Meeker. We scheduled an appointment with him and in a few weeks that appointment came. The eye doctor examined my eyes and diagnosed me with Esotrpoia and Esophoria. This is where I turn things over to Wikipedia for a moment (and rejoice for "copy and paste"):
Esotropia is a form of strabismus, or "squint", in which one or both eyes turns inward. The condition can be constantly present, or occur intermittently, and can give the affected individual a "cross-eyed" appearance.
Esophoria is characterised by inward deviation of the eye usually due to extra-ocular muscle imbalance.
Long story short, I was going cross-eyed (really? One could become cross-eyed? I though one was born that way?). The eye doctor explained that he had a colleague in his office in Craig that works with patients to fix vision problems such as these with "vision therapy". This meant that for several months, I would have to drive to Craig, an hour before school ended for the day, two or three times a week for therapy.
During this time I had my driver's permit. Needless to say, most of my hour requirements were met with trips to Craig. Mom and I spent many hours driving to and from Craig, truth be told now (though I would have never admitted it at the age of 15, but those were some of the best hours of my life. Mom began teaching me and showing me who God really was and what is was like to have a personal relationship with him. Outside of church and religions, just a "walk" with God. I remember listening in awe at some of the stories and experiences she would tell me. How she would feel the Lord lead her through a situation or hear the lord speak to her. I remember thinking… "well I want that, how do I get that?" It was then I began my walk with my God).
So vision therapy began, it was a lot of eye exercises and vision manipulation. An example: one homework exercise was to take this long string with a yellow, green and red bead, tied at different lengths along the string, and tie one end to a door knob. I would then hold the other end to my nose. What happens is that your vision, while looking down the string, will make it appears if there are two stings crossed over one another. I was to force this "crossover" to go through the 1st bead and then the second and then the third (rinse and repeat). Its the same idea as if you hold your index finger in front of you face. When you focus on your finger (you should see two backgrounds behind your finger). Now focus on the background, looking past your finger (now you should see two index fingers).
On a side note: I am smiling from ear to ear imagining people reading this and now are sitting in front of their computer staring at their index finger. :)
A month or two into the therapy and I started getting headaches. I would comment (and sometimes complain) about them to the therapist. He would tell me that I should feel "some slight" discomfort but that the therapy was giving me headaches was doubtful. A few months past and I now had my license, it was the summer of 2003, and I was driving myself to Craig for therapy. At this time I was beginning to really hate going. Therapy was getting harder and my headaches were getting stronger… and then the dizziness came. I kept telling the therapist about the headaches, the eye pain and now the dizziness. He would dismiss my comments and act as if I was just being a wimp.
Junior year had started and I was still going to vision therapy (the bane of my existence at the time). Each session seemed to cause my now ever present headache to increase. One evening as I was driving home, my dizziness became so intense that my vision blurred and I almost drove off the road. When I pulled the car over, I sat there and shook for about 30 minutes before I had the courage to continue home. I told mom about what happened and she decided that she would try and take as many afternoons off and drive me. Some days however, she just couldn't. And I couldn't have a repeat of what had happened last time I went alone. So one day when mom couldn't take me, I decided after my therapy session, I would try and sleep in the car for a few hours and then drive home. I quickly found out that you could not sleep in your car in that parking lot. A policeman kindly woke me up and told me that this was a private parking lot and that I was loitering. So I drove across the street to the Kmart and went inside. I asked to see the manager and asked if I could sleep in my car for a few hours before I headed home. He said yes but the look he gave me made me feel like a freak. This was the day I became a slave to sleep.
So this became my routine when mom couldn't take me. After hour and a half of therapy, I would get a headache and become dizzy. I would then drive across the street and sleep in the Kmart parking lot for a few hours and then drive home. This may sound ridiculous but I was told therapy was the only way to fix going cross-eyed. What choice did I have? My parents didn't have much money and the therapy was expensive, I had to suck it up in order to get better, so mom and dad didn't have to spend anymore money. I had to get better! I WASN'T going to be the sickly, expensive, problem child anymore!….. Little did I know what was waiting for me in my future.
My senior year was about to start and I had finally been freed of the bondage that was vision therapy. I even had a souvenir, headaches (score!). In the middle of the first day of school I experienced something new, as I sat in the classroom and all the sudden all the light in the room exploded into my eyes. It was like staring into the sun, the pain was so intense my eyes began to water. And then just as quickly my head began screaming and my world began to darken and collapse on me. I can't fully remember the rest of the day, I just remember the pain. August 18th, 2003 was the day I became a slave to light. The day that everything changed.
Its funny, they say that pain fades in time. Mothers can comment about how painful child birth is (reason 4,682 I'm glad to be a guy) but the actual pain seems to fade from memory. I'm not sure if this is true but if pain fades, the emotions during the memories sure don't. Its very interesting and sometimes hard to relive these memories. I had packed them away so that I would never have to think about them again. Like that one drawer in your house that you just shove random or unwanted stuff into, hope the day never comes in which you might have to go through it all. And so I would like to thank you for reading this post, it makes me feel like I didn't have to go through these oldest memories alone. TBall
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