Vision problems and other improvements

Hi all...Esther here.

I returned from a wonderful trip to Israel last week and am finally getting back to regular life, including updating this blog. I had a great week of study at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem as part of a special program for campus professionals (basically Hillel folks). This is the first year that the program was offered, so it was an elite group, 15 of us, and we will get together again via webinars every 2 weeks during the school year and again in person in St Louis (August), New York (January) and Jerusalem (next July).

I came home around 5am and the boys (including Mordy) were thrilled to see me when they woke up. Ann, my mother-in-law, had been staying at the house, and she went home that night. The boys also slept at my mother's for 2 nights while I was gone. I am very grateful to my mother and mother-in-law for watching the boys and making it possible for me to go to Israel.

Mordy improved while I was away. He has several updates about his condition:
1) Vision... As the neuro-ophthalmologist had predicted, Mordy's vision has changed (hopefully for the better). He realized that the prisms weren't working, so he tried to make a follow up appointment with the neuro-ophthalmologist. But that doctor was on vacation for 2 weeks. His staff gave Mordy a list of other doctors to choose from. So he went to a new doctor, Jonathan Fishbein, who we happened to know from when our son Isaac and his son Sam were in daycare together from age 2 to age 5.

Dr. Fishbein gave Mordy an incredibly thorough exam--more than the previous doctor had done. He discovered that Mordy has a macular pucker, which can sometimes lead to macular degeneration, in his right eye. Apparently Mordy's brain had been compensating for the loss of vision in that eye, but with the stroke, his brain had so much else to do that it could no longer compensate for the vision loss. Mordy has contrast problems in the right eye, but acuity is normal. This means that the world looks a bit dimmer and stranger on his right side, but he is still able to distinguish shapes and movement very well. In fact, the overall vision in that eye can be corrected to 20/15. This accounts for Mordy's continued ability to both read and write, while insisting that his world looks weird on the right side. Mordy is going to see a retinal specialist next week to evaluate the status of the macular pucker and to determine what can be done. But in the meantime he has an excellent new prescription (with new bilateral prisms) and is compensating nicely by positioning himself to the right of things and peering out at them to the left. I guess you already knew that Mordy's vision was skewed to the left, it's just truer now... :)

2) Therapy improvements...
When Mordy first started physical therapy, they evaluated him using a 30 point scale. The first time they tested him, he got a 12. After 7 sessions, he scored 17. Yesterday when he reached a score of 21, he finally fell into the range of acceptable function limits (ie your ability to do stuff on your own), which is anything above 20. He is still determined to get up to 30, but you can see how much he has improved already.

3) Getting around:
 Mordy brought his bicycle to therapy last week and rode around, inside and outside, with a group of therapists all around him to make sure he didn't fall. He didn't. He is excited to be back on his bike and looks forward to using it again in September when he returns to teaching at JTS.

Mordy is also getting tested for being able to drive again. He passed the first half of the evaluation and will have the second half this coming Tuesday. Once he passes that, he'll have the actual road test at JFK. If he passes that, he'll be able to drive.
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As for me, I am happy to be back with the boys, and with Mordy. The boys enjoy day camp and I am still working 1/2 days at Hillel. Isaac (age 9) leaves on Tuesday for 3.5 weeks at Camp Ramah (sleepaway camp) and he is very excited about it. Mordy and I had a date last week (went to see the 60th anniversary edition of the movie Singing in the Rain, which was playing one night only at a local movie theater) and we have a date tomorrow night (our season tickets to NJ Shakespeare). I am enjoying the summer. Thanks for reading...