The wonder of prisms

Today Mordy had a pretty good morning with physical therapy and more "activities for daily living." He practiced doing several tasks that he'll do at home once he gets back from rehab. He did a great job with it all. The whole time he was wearing the eye patch to reduce the double vision and ensuing dizziness.

In the middle of his second therapy session (after lunch), the neuro-ophthomologist came in with prisms.  He held the prisms over Mordy's right eye until he found the right one to help prevent Mordy from seeing double.  We were a bit surprised to see the doctor, since we thought that prisms would be something Mordy would get further down the road.  But the doctor removed Mordy's patch and put the prism (clear plastic) over one lens of Mordy's glasses.  Mordy put on the glasses and exclaimed "I can see!"  The double vision was gone.  It was amazing!!

Mordy continued to have the prism on his glasses for the rest of the day.  For the most part, the double vision was gone.  At a certain point, his eyes became fatigued and the double vision returned.  So I encouraged Mordy to close his eyes for a bit, to give them a rest.  After 30 seconds, he opened his eyes and the vision was normal again.

The prisms are incredible.  He no longer sees double.  This has significantly reduced the dizziness.  The doctor suspects that as the brain will continue to heal he will outgrow the prisms.  When that happens, we'll just remove the plastic from his glasses, and his vision should return to normal.  Amazing, right?!?

The neuro-ophthomologist is bringing Mordy to his class tomorrow morning, to tell the residents about Mordy's case and display how the prisms are working.  Lucky Mordy, he gets to return to a classroom for purposes of instruction within 2 weeks of his stroke! (And we're looking forward to his return to being in the role of teacher this Fall...)

Mordy continued to walk without the walker today.  He occasionally used a cane, but often just held my hand or walked with someone nearby. With the prisms, his gait has improved.  It is truly a blessing to see the healing that is happening.  While incremental, it is consistent.  We're hopeful for a speedy recovery.  Thank you all for your cards and prayers.  I'm sharing every message with Mordy (even if I don't reply to you directly, we're getting them!) and he's happy to receive so much support from all of you.

We're still hoping he'll come home Friday...I'll keep you posted on that.