Bioptic Fitting Day: 03/24/09

I couldn't be happier about my new adventure. Before I signed on the dotted line to buy the bioptic, I wanted to see if I could get purchase assistance from the Alabama Rehabilitation for the Blind. I called my counselor, Charles, and then I called him again and again and again. Apparently he was out of the office or at meetings or anywhere else but answering his phone. I started getting frustrated. My customer service job doesn't allow me much free time to make or accept calls. The phone tag was becoming a headache. I finally decided after about 3 failed attempts to reach my counselor, I'd resort to email. Suddenly, I got a response, then a phone call, then messages, then more emails. Apparently I tapped the communication sweet spot. Charles agreed that driving would certainly enhance my work abilities. With that, he sent a few forms over to reactivate my rehabilitation case. The evening I received them I was so elated that I signed everything and rushed to the post office the same evening to drop off the completed forms. What would happen next? How much could they assist me in the middle of a economic slump? All these questions danced in my head. The waiting game began.

One day about a week or two later I was checking my voice mail. I was at work in the lobby waiting for my bus to come. Suddenly I yelled "YES!" Dr De Carlo's assistant left me a voice mail stating the bioptic was ordered. I knew this meant the Rehabilitation office had agreed to help me. What I didn't know was how much. So I began to wonder. I decided there was only one way to find out. Fearing that it was too late in the evening to call the doctors office I wrestled to decide if I should call. Curiosity got the best of me and I called and spoke with the Dr De Carlo's assistant, Lisa. I wanted to know how much financial assistance I was approved for. She then told me Rehabilitation paid for all $1500.00 of it ! This meant the world to me. I could more easily afford to make a down payment on a used car now. Plus, they were already ordered, I didn't have to think about it. This made my day, my week, my year. So Lisa helped me get scheduled for a fitting with Dr De Carlo on 03/24/09. Since the glasses and bioptic are custom ordered, I could add at least 2 more weeks of waiting to my to do list.

March 24 2009 arrived quickly. I came in the Dr's. office ready to see what my new bioptic glasses were going to do for me. I was disappointed that Dr De Carlo did not show them to me. Instead her assistant, pulled them out of the pleather case. They looked like the photos, but the weight of them did shock me. I could tell that my nose would hurt after just 15 minutes of wearing the bioptic glasses. But who cares, there is no price you can put on independence and freedom. With that thought out of my head, I was told the doctor would now come in and take a look at the fit. Dr De Carlo showed me how to adjust the lens using the screwdriver provided. It seemed like making adjustments were a trial and error task. With that done, she showed me a strap that could help bear some of the weight of the glasses. We also talked about the special sun shield she ordered to go over the glasses. It was around $25.00 alone. She said the company can charge what they want for these since they are one of a kind, so I should guard it with my life or pay the price. After that we did a few test with the eye chart. I was amazed at what I could see.

The doctors always do these test but never tell you what they are writing down, unless you ask. It seems like we all should be conditioned to ask questions by now. I have always had people ask me what my vision is. I swear, I just never remember the numbers because it's so rare its discussed in depth. Today I wanted to see what exactly the difference was. I weighed in at 20/150 without the bi-optic glasses and 20/25 with the bioptic. This was only when reading in ideal lighting conditions on stationary high contrast letters. That was a point I didn't think anything about, until I took them for a road trip. Dr De Carlo was feeling much better since getting over the walking pneumonia. I don't understand how she drug herself to work the day she met me in February, but was so glad she was better. She took time to explain to me the next steps. I would go for training using the bioptic. This would consist of self training, training with the occupational therapist and passenger training with my driving instructor. That's a lot of training. I hoped my job would help me get the time off needed to do all this. All this was exciting, but the future came with a few obstacles. Dr De Carlo explained the resident occupational trainer on her staff was leaving the job soon and it would take her several weeks to get a new employee to do my training. Knowing the time it takes to get through this whole process, she remained encouraging and told me she'd try and work something out sooner. Another delima was the state paperwork required to become a licensed bioptic driver was being revamped. Information I dug up online in January warned me I should get this paperwork early. But I was hitting brick walls every time I called the Department of Motor Vehicle Office. Dr De Carlo stated she was involved in some of this process and she was hopeful the newly revised paperwork needed would be approved and sent to me soon. A few weeks later I contacted the D.M.V. office again and still got sympathetic apologies and was told I was on the mass mailing list. This list consisted of many individuals across the state waiting on this paperwork in order to get licensed to drive. It angered me, but i just told myself it was out of my hands. I didn't think it wise to bug these people, but I did feel like a bi-weekly call was healthy encouragement.

With all that information to process, Dr De Carlo then offered a interesting revelation for me. Unlike almost every other optometrist I've ever seen, she said she disagreed that I was born with my eye problems. Most all my eye care professionals have diagnosed me with : trauma at birth. The medical term is Optic Atrophy. She stated she was not so sure. In an effort to get the most information possible she offered a suggestion no one ever had before. She said in order to tell if my eye problems were optical problems or macular problems she could order a Electro-Retinogram. She explained it was painless, and while the answers would not solve any of my eye problems in the near future, it may be helpful in the distant future. I couldn't believe she cared enough to suggest this. Why did no other optometrist tell me about this? I'm no doctor, but it was evident she was doing everything possible to help me and my eye condition. I easily agreed to get the Electro-retinogram. She explained it would be painless and they would take me in a totally dark room and put something similar to contacts on my eyes. I wear contacts, so none of this bothered me in the least. She stated she'd let me know when she got it scheduled. After that I grabbed my new glasses and was ready to explore riding in a car with them. Dr De Carlo told me to use them as much as possible, but don't develop bad habits of looking in them for more than 2 seconds. With that, she locked up the office and called it a day. I wore the glasses on the way home and couldn't believe I could read the Vulcan sign on the Red Mountain Expressway home. This was my first success using the bioptic and my mind rattled with anticipation of all the possibilities. What an amazing day.

The Journey To A Day: 02/19/09

It's 6:45 am on Feb 19th 2009 in Birmingham Alabama. A cold morning that started with my usual bus ride on the Birmingham MAX Para-transit service. I rode to work and back most every day using this service since September 2002. I had a love hate relationship with my transit providers. I loved most of the drivers as I loved my own family, but detested the way management got away with providing such poor quality of service to paying customers. To sum it up in the words of a colleague of mine, the Birmingham transit service at times seemed it couldn't put together a 2 car parade. The words from the dispatchers were just that, words. Sure these words read kindly, but they sounded brazen and meaningless so many days. My vision loss forced me and others like me to put up with this service. I can't tell you how many days I wanted to utterly destroy each and every one of their cars, so they could understand what it was like to be late for work or not know how much longer it would really be before you'd ever make it to your home.

Now that I have that out of my system, I can tell you more about this particular morning's bus ride. My driver stopped to greet me in the middle of a cell phone conversation. Technology makes its way into everyone's day in America. This day proved to be no different. Upon boarding the bus with my flashy holographic monthly pass, I said "what's up", my usual greeting, and sat down in the front seat. I reminded my driver this morning's destination would be different. I was elated to not be going to work. The change in itinerary would take me somewhere I had not been before. I read the address to him to be sure he knew it. He said he'd been there before.  I was thinking, I wish I had been there years ago. Around 7a.m. I was dropped off at the Callahan Low Vision center at UAB. I was 30 minutes early for my eye evaluation. Upon entering this obviously retrofitted building, I wondered to the information desk. Seeing my obvious confusion, a receptionist promptly asked if I was there for my surgery. I laughed and told her I hoped not. I told her I was to see a particular doctor and she pointed me in another direction. I passed a sea of elderly people whom I guessed were in fact awaiting surgery. Upon arrival at another small desk, a young guy sat like the bouncer of the eye center. Again I asked directions and realized I was in real trouble because he had no clue who my physician was. Back to the information center I walked. This time I approached another person, who instructed me to hang a right, hit the elevator and take it to the 4th floor. Yes, finally some real directions from somebody that really knows something. The elevator dinged and I walked off the 4th floor with 3 directions to choose. I had no idea this was going to be a maze. I struggled to read the signs in the eye center due to the small print they were in. Imagine that, a low vision center with signs in tiny print. So I wondered around. Not a person was on this floor. I was sure the woman said 4th floor. I walked around in circles. It was 7:15am. I started fearing I'd be late. Out of desperation, I fished my cell phone out of my coat pocket and called the doctor's office. To my shock and horror, just a machine picked up.

I made my way back to the elevator about to ride back down for the 4th attempt at instructions and saw a sign that said Callahan Low Vision Center. Wow, I finally made it. Time to relax. No, it wasn't time to relax. There were no lights on. Had I misunderstood that appointment date? Surely not. I took a seat in front of the dark office and quietly pondered where the people could be that ran the place. After about 2 minutes a person whizzed by and unlocked the door to the doctor's office. I sat quietly.  She peered over her shoulder before entering the room and confirmed who I was. She apologized for my waiting, and said I was the earliest appointment and they rarely are there much earlier than that. I wondered my way into the waiting room, filled out a sign in sheet, and was told they would get my insurance information later. The doctor's assistant did this interview with me. She asked me who the president was, what day it was, and I started to wonder if I had read the sign wrong and walked into the Alzheimer's treatment unit. She then tried to get me to enter a study that I was not really interested in investing my time in. With that, I was escorted back to the waiting room. By this time the real receptionist had arrived. She was coughing on the phone. I could hear her following some orders between coughs. Apparently the doctor was canceling appointments. I thought please God don't let her cancel mine. After some more casual ease dropping, I learned it was the afternoon appointments only. After a few more minutes, the receptionist escorted me to the examination room where I answered more detailed questions about my health. She was obviously sick. This was the time of year I usually get a sinus infection, so I was not so zealous about being in the same room with her too long. She was nice enough to make every effort to ensure she didn't spread germs to me. After she finished questioning me, she left me alone to have that quality thinking time before the actual doctor arrives. I thought, this day has been in the making 30 years. Please don't let it be for nothing God. Soon the door swung open and a middle aged woman entered the room and introduced herself as Dr De Carlo. I had read online that she was a low vision specialist. She asked me more medical questions and finally got to the point.

What do you hope to gain from your visit with me today? Is there anything you would like to do with your vision that you feel you can't do today? And with that, my simple reply was, I would love to be able to drive. She immediately looked at me with purpose.  I feel she could tell this was in fact something she could definitely help me do. She then told me that she would have to do several test on me to see if I qualified. We talked about my vision care and she realized she knew my optometrist. This seemed to spark more zeal, she immediately asked her assistant to get my optometrist to fax over copies of my medical records. It felt reassuring that there was some connection between my regular eye doctor and Dr De Carlo. She backed up in her rolling chair as she talked to me. She was like her assistant: very sick and probably shouldn't have been at work at all. But her dedication showed as she struggled to talk without coughing. She tried using a cough drop, but it didn't help her cough. She said she'd not been sick in the 3 years she's worked at this location and yet today she had already cancelled half her appointments. Now this really made me think more of God's plans. How amazing that I happened to be the person she saw on a day when she probably should be at the doctor herself. I couldn't help but feel gratitude.

Since she had my updated eye information from my optometrist, she was able to proceed with a visual field test. If you've never taken one of these, it's like playing Jeopardy while looking for alien space craft. Your affix you face in a small dome and the doctor controls the size, speed, and direction of light you see. This test how far up, down, left, and right you can see things. Oh, did I mention there's a fun eye patch you must wear. Upon finishing her notes, I waited quietly for the results. You passed. Wow, I couldn't believe that my dream of 30 years had only one more canyon to jump.......a color test. Yes, I was born, color blind. Not completely color blind. Bright colors were easy for me to see. The muted earth tones and colors in the same value posed the most problems. You'd think they would have you look at a traffic light, a few signs, and that would be that. Nope. They had this color coffin. Okay, bad analogy, but it was pretty intimidating for me because it was about 15 colors lined up in this clear plastic tray. These were pretty muted colors in value, so I immediately felt disadvantaged. The doctor took them out of the coffin, and jumbled them all up. She then told me to put them back in the order she had them. I was instructed not to touch the tops with my fingers as oil on the colors would distort what one sees. After that she finally left me to my challenge. I was agitated by this. I thought if I don't pass this last test due to a few stupid color choices I will....I can't think that way, do it Rodney, just concentrate and do this. There is no second chance. I played around with the colors staring intently. You'd think this would be a trivial task to an artist, but not this color blind artist. The doctor peeked in on me after several minutes. I could tell it must not have been too good because she glanced and wondered back the other direction without asking if I was done. Again she left the room. Okay, I've got to get this right. I stared, and stared and moved the colors around a few times more until I felt there was absolutely nothing more I could do to improve my choices. She examined them without saying anything.

Don't you hate how doctors create all this suspense through silence? I did. She said I didn't do too well on that, but not to fear because she had another color test. My heart skipped a beat, and I thought I can't believe all my dreams come down to this color crunching. She pulled out some swatches and asked me to ID them. I was relieved these were bright colors I could easily distinguish. And with that she said I passed the third and final test. It didn't really sink in what just happened. She proceeded to tell me about how there are different bi-optic lenses and frames. We reviewed the samples;  I tried them on and took them for a test drive. Once she measured my eyes, I was outfitted with these lenses and she asked me to read the eye chart. I was thinking they were not focused right. I couldn't see anything. She showed me how to focus them. Then she realized I was not tilting my head down. She told me that you must do so to read using the bi-optics. Since you drive using your regular forward vision, the bi-optic is made so it doesn't interfere with that vision. Tilting my head slightly down she asked me to read the chart. Oh, I couldn't believe this;  suddenly I realized this was the first time I was at the eye doctor's office reading past the second line of letters with no problems whatsoever! A true miracle had just taken place.

Here's what my new Bi-Optics will look like!

They are mega expensive AND trendy! Right? : )