Five thousand dollars and nearly a year later (technically 7 months, but with several breaks it stretched out a bit longer) my youngest son has been "released" from vision therapy.
You may (or may not) recall that back in 2010 we finally took him to the optometrist (at 6 years old -- our fault) and realized that one of his eyes had really poor vision and didn't see at all (suppression & amblyopia or lazy eye).
After a year and a half of patching (and a wrong prescription that made us waste 70 dollars on a pair of spare glasses) we switched doctors and then, last March, had him evaluated by a vision therapist who recommended therapy, so we started it in September, after coming back from Brazil last year.
His eye can see way better and it's almost 20/20 now, but there is some suppression still going on, especially when he tries to focus on something far. The doctor says that contact lenses would help with the binocularity and making the left eye work better (because the good right eye takes over, basically). We'll see if our optometrist can help with that. Apparently 9 years old is not too young for contacts, if it's done well (with lots of patience).
His therapist (the woman who actually works with him) thought he should keep going a while longer, but the doctor who owns the practice released him. The super-tall and pretty young lady was sad to see our son go, so she told him:
"I hope you can come back, maybe you can have other vision troubles."
My son didn't miss a beat and retorted: "And we'd pay another 5 thousand dollars?" (like -- are you crazy? We're not doing this again!).
The adults in the room (there was another lady with her son) laughed slightly nervously, but that was the truth, we paid way too much for what had been done (and part of me wanted him to continue, but the doctor doesn't think it would help). He will see my son in 6 months again, so we'll probably see the young therapist again at that time.
They gave him a Target gift certificate to celebrate the end of his months of therapy. It was only 5 dollars, so dad helped him buy a small Ninjago Lego set. He was beyond thrilled that he no longer need to do therapy at home or come to weekly sessions (we drive nearly an hour each way).
I am glad that his vision improved so much, I just wish it hadn't cost so much! (insurance doesn't cover it) Now we need to take to the optometrist because his last visit was a year ago. I'm sure he'll be surprised to see such improvement! And maybe my little one will wear contact lenses at some point (he's not too excited about that). I'll keep you posted!
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2 comments:
Well, sounds expensive, but what a blessing that the eye is functioning so much better. Tell him he might just really like contact lenses. :)
It's so ridiculous that insurance doesn't pay for these kinds of therapies. My friend is going through a similar struggle with very expensive, not always helpful speech therapy although now the school district is helping pay since her daughter is old enough that they agree she needs extra support.
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