Please Help Xanthe See in 3-D!
Donation protected
Xanthe is so excited! She has the chance to finally see in 3D!!!
But she needs your help to make that happen.
What does seeing in 3D mean?
Most of us see in 3D and just never realized it. It means we see in depth. Our eyes automatically adjust to make us aware of how much distance there is between ourselves and the world around us.
Xanthe was born with two perfectly healthy eyes, but one didn't connect with her brain. I had a very bad fall when I was about 8 months pregnant with her that her doctor is sure was the reason the connection was lost to her eye.
This means that for her entire life she has had full vision in one eye but no vision, or mainly super blurry vision with a little peripheral vision in her other eye. Which resulted in her having only 2D vision. So like looking at a flat 2D drawing. No depth perception whatsoever!
What she has normally comes with an eye that is off kilter, meaning: not looking straight ahead. Which is what would normally tip a parent off that something was wrong with their child's vision.
In Xanthe's case, her eye muscles worked just fine and so it 'looked' like her eyes were just fine.
BUT... boy was she ever CLUMSY!!! ;)
We thought maybe she had an inner ear issue but her ears were just fine. She would trip and fall ALL THE TIME!!!
When she was 6 she told us that one eye was really blurry. We took her to our local optometrist but he told us it was too late to do anything to help her. He had us try patching her good eye for about half a year, just in case it would help, and gave her a pair of glasses with one glass the size of the bottom of an old glass coke bottle.
But no use, at that time, there was nothing we could do. No surgery options, nothing.
We started looking into alternative ways to heal her eye and found a few that slowly helped her a little but not enough to get the connections fully working.
We started her in dance and the 'cross-crawl' movement started to help her get a little more aware of her physical surroundings Her spacial intelligence started to develop.
But as her new optometrist, Dr. Vi Tu Bahn told me, she just learned how to adapt. Her brain didn't really register the connection to the eye, she just learned how to 'work around' the problem of her lack of sight.
One of the side effects of the eye conditon was that she developed Dyslexic symptoms. Letters would be seen but not always in the order they were actually written. (Sometimes even totally backwards.) And as other Dyslexic's know, it's not just reading that it affects, it's Math and also the way they think and perceive the world.
The long and short of it is that when you walk up a step, you see that it's a step, that it has depth...Xanthe doesn't!
She sees that there is a shadow, she sees that the things closer to her are larger and the things farther away are smaller, so she's learned to mentally figure out that there is a step, but she doesn't actually 'see' the depth of the step.
(Oh trust me...she used to trip a LOT! Especially over her little brother, he was not impressed.) ;) Poor thing.
She's learned how to recognize where a step might be, but would never understand how deep that step was!
Until now! :D
Dr. Vi Tu Bahn has started a new vision therapy treatment and Xanthe is the perfect candidate and he is confident of her gaining full connection with her eye. She will finally be able to see in 3D!!! Just like you and me!! :D And he says it should also clear up the Dyslexia issues as well...my daughter may actually get to enjoy reading! (She's always loved the stories, it just always was quite litterally painful to read.)
I am so incredibly excited for her!
But, it costs a lot to do. Dr. Vi Tu Bahn really wants to help her and has offered to discount the treatments for us by 50%! Which is incredibly generous! But the treatments do require the use of machines, time, exercises, new staff, etc. which do have a cost. One that at this time we cannot afford on our own. :(
The full cost would be $5000 but he's willing to help her for half of that, for just $2500! Incredible! Just not something we can afford right now. (As many of you know, it's been a pretty rough year for us.)
We've had a few friends encourage us to do a funding campaing to help get Xanthe this treatment. It's a 40 week course of 1 hour appointments each week with an additional 20-30 minutes of eye therapy homework every single day. Xanthe is fully comitted!
She's the most independent, self-motivated girl I've ever know and I know for certain she will put 110% into this!
She's going to keep a written and video diary of her treatments, her homework, and progress and is going to be a case study for Dr. Vi Tu Bahn so that as she heals the connection with her eye and her brain she can be an inspiration for others.
Xanthe will be turning 15 in March and our goal is to have her seeing in 3D by next March when she turns 16 so that she will be able to learn how to drive...and actually see how far away the other cars are, not to mention the pedestrians!!!
Please, if you can, help us raise the funds to pay for this treatment. It really means the world to us, it means everything to Xanthe.
Last year, when I was really ill, a dear friend started a funding campaign for us to get us through the most difficult time of our lives and for that we are forever grateful. It's hard to ask for help. (It's a lot easier when you're in a coma and someone else is asking for the help for you. Thank-you Bonnie. )
But Xanthe is my life, and I know its time to push past my comfort zone and ask for help.
Please donate if you can and share with your friends. If you can't donate, please know we totally understand but if you would still share our campaign for us that too is a HUGE help.
Thank-you everyone. You have no idea how much this means to us.
Love you all so much! We honestly wouldn't even be where we are today without the help you have already given us over the past year.
Thank-you. <3
Love Amanda, Xanthe's mom.
P.S. Xanthe can begin the treatments as soon as we have our first downpayment of $500. Dr. Vi Tu Bahn is so compassionate and understanding, he's letting us pay as we can. He's so grateful to how our sweet town of Uxbridge helped him and his family when they came here as refugees over 20 years ago, he feels its his calling to help others. Thank-you.
P.P.S. If we are so blessed as to receive more funding than we need for the treatments, then we will save the rest to give to Xanthe next year for her birthday to pay for getting her driver's licence and eventual vehicle! Thank-you.
P.P.S. I've had a few people who want to help but don't know how to navigate through the site to make a donation. You can message me privately through the 'contact the organizer' link at the top of this page and I'll see what I can do to help you out. Thank-you so much.
But she needs your help to make that happen.
What does seeing in 3D mean?
Most of us see in 3D and just never realized it. It means we see in depth. Our eyes automatically adjust to make us aware of how much distance there is between ourselves and the world around us.
Xanthe was born with two perfectly healthy eyes, but one didn't connect with her brain. I had a very bad fall when I was about 8 months pregnant with her that her doctor is sure was the reason the connection was lost to her eye.
This means that for her entire life she has had full vision in one eye but no vision, or mainly super blurry vision with a little peripheral vision in her other eye. Which resulted in her having only 2D vision. So like looking at a flat 2D drawing. No depth perception whatsoever!
What she has normally comes with an eye that is off kilter, meaning: not looking straight ahead. Which is what would normally tip a parent off that something was wrong with their child's vision.
In Xanthe's case, her eye muscles worked just fine and so it 'looked' like her eyes were just fine.
BUT... boy was she ever CLUMSY!!! ;)
We thought maybe she had an inner ear issue but her ears were just fine. She would trip and fall ALL THE TIME!!!
When she was 6 she told us that one eye was really blurry. We took her to our local optometrist but he told us it was too late to do anything to help her. He had us try patching her good eye for about half a year, just in case it would help, and gave her a pair of glasses with one glass the size of the bottom of an old glass coke bottle.
But no use, at that time, there was nothing we could do. No surgery options, nothing.
We started looking into alternative ways to heal her eye and found a few that slowly helped her a little but not enough to get the connections fully working.
We started her in dance and the 'cross-crawl' movement started to help her get a little more aware of her physical surroundings Her spacial intelligence started to develop.
But as her new optometrist, Dr. Vi Tu Bahn told me, she just learned how to adapt. Her brain didn't really register the connection to the eye, she just learned how to 'work around' the problem of her lack of sight.
One of the side effects of the eye conditon was that she developed Dyslexic symptoms. Letters would be seen but not always in the order they were actually written. (Sometimes even totally backwards.) And as other Dyslexic's know, it's not just reading that it affects, it's Math and also the way they think and perceive the world.
The long and short of it is that when you walk up a step, you see that it's a step, that it has depth...Xanthe doesn't!
She sees that there is a shadow, she sees that the things closer to her are larger and the things farther away are smaller, so she's learned to mentally figure out that there is a step, but she doesn't actually 'see' the depth of the step.
(Oh trust me...she used to trip a LOT! Especially over her little brother, he was not impressed.) ;) Poor thing.
She's learned how to recognize where a step might be, but would never understand how deep that step was!
Until now! :D
Dr. Vi Tu Bahn has started a new vision therapy treatment and Xanthe is the perfect candidate and he is confident of her gaining full connection with her eye. She will finally be able to see in 3D!!! Just like you and me!! :D And he says it should also clear up the Dyslexia issues as well...my daughter may actually get to enjoy reading! (She's always loved the stories, it just always was quite litterally painful to read.)
I am so incredibly excited for her!
But, it costs a lot to do. Dr. Vi Tu Bahn really wants to help her and has offered to discount the treatments for us by 50%! Which is incredibly generous! But the treatments do require the use of machines, time, exercises, new staff, etc. which do have a cost. One that at this time we cannot afford on our own. :(
The full cost would be $5000 but he's willing to help her for half of that, for just $2500! Incredible! Just not something we can afford right now. (As many of you know, it's been a pretty rough year for us.)
We've had a few friends encourage us to do a funding campaing to help get Xanthe this treatment. It's a 40 week course of 1 hour appointments each week with an additional 20-30 minutes of eye therapy homework every single day. Xanthe is fully comitted!
She's the most independent, self-motivated girl I've ever know and I know for certain she will put 110% into this!
She's going to keep a written and video diary of her treatments, her homework, and progress and is going to be a case study for Dr. Vi Tu Bahn so that as she heals the connection with her eye and her brain she can be an inspiration for others.
Xanthe will be turning 15 in March and our goal is to have her seeing in 3D by next March when she turns 16 so that she will be able to learn how to drive...and actually see how far away the other cars are, not to mention the pedestrians!!!
Please, if you can, help us raise the funds to pay for this treatment. It really means the world to us, it means everything to Xanthe.
Last year, when I was really ill, a dear friend started a funding campaign for us to get us through the most difficult time of our lives and for that we are forever grateful. It's hard to ask for help. (It's a lot easier when you're in a coma and someone else is asking for the help for you. Thank-you Bonnie. )
But Xanthe is my life, and I know its time to push past my comfort zone and ask for help.
Please donate if you can and share with your friends. If you can't donate, please know we totally understand but if you would still share our campaign for us that too is a HUGE help.
Thank-you everyone. You have no idea how much this means to us.
Love you all so much! We honestly wouldn't even be where we are today without the help you have already given us over the past year.
Thank-you. <3
Love Amanda, Xanthe's mom.
P.S. Xanthe can begin the treatments as soon as we have our first downpayment of $500. Dr. Vi Tu Bahn is so compassionate and understanding, he's letting us pay as we can. He's so grateful to how our sweet town of Uxbridge helped him and his family when they came here as refugees over 20 years ago, he feels its his calling to help others. Thank-you.
P.P.S. If we are so blessed as to receive more funding than we need for the treatments, then we will save the rest to give to Xanthe next year for her birthday to pay for getting her driver's licence and eventual vehicle! Thank-you.
P.P.S. I've had a few people who want to help but don't know how to navigate through the site to make a donation. You can message me privately through the 'contact the organizer' link at the top of this page and I'll see what I can do to help you out. Thank-you so much.
Organizer
Amanda van der Gulik
Organizer
Uxbridge, ON