Hi, I’m Anderson and I am lazy.  Well, my right eye is lazy, not me.  Actually, my right eye used to be lazy, but it’s not any more.  Here’s my story about my lazy eye and how I was able to fix it.

In first grade, I found out I had a lazy right eye.  Actually, it is called amblyopia, but that is a hard word to pronounce.  Basically, I don’t see very well out of my right eye.  Fixing lazy eye usually requires patching.  I wasn’t interested in looking like a pirate in my first grade class, so the doctor decided to see if wearing glasses would be good enough.  Several years later, I decided it wasn’t good enough.  It really bugged me that part of me was being lazy.  I also learned that for some careers, 20/20 or better vision is needed.  Since I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, I needed to get my lazy eye working.

In November, I started seeing a doctor who specializes in treating kids with lazy eyes.  Her name is Dr. Duss.  She explained that vision is a process between your brain and the image coming from your eyes.  Since I see better out of my left eye than my right eye, my brain developed vision in my left eye, but ignored the blurry images coming from my right eye.  So, in order to fix my lazy eye, I needed to force my brain to start using the image coming from my right eye.  Basically, my brain needed to re-learn how to see.

After the age of 9, you can’t develop amblyopia, so doctors used to think treatment after this age wouldn’t work.  However, it’s been recently discovered that treatment can be successful in older children.  Although she was a little doubtful, Dr. Duss said, “Let’s give it a try.”  So, every day, I’ve been using a special drop in my left eye, which makes my pupil grow really big and blurs my vision, forcing my brain to use my right eye more.  I’ve been getting my vision checked every month, and at every appointment I can see better and better.  Each time, Dr. Duss says, “Let’s keep going!  Let’s see how much better it can get.”  I’m like her own lab rat!

Since November, I have gone from 20/40 to almost 20/20 vision in my right eye.  At my last appointment, Dr. Duss was very excited, saying I was the oldest patient in her practice to have this type of improvement.  She said, “You can now be a pilot!”   I don’t think I will be a pilot, but at least I know I’m not limited by my laziness anymore.