Ding!

The bell calls across the room announcing our arrival with a condescending tone and smirks at me as we enter. My mom walks up to the front desk to check for my appointment. I slump into the closest chair I can find. The brash lights above pry at my eyes like needles. I pull my hands over my face and lean my upper weight into my elbows as a layer of defense against the wretched light.

Clip…clip…clip…clip

A light breeze tickles my arm as my mom walks over and places herself into the chair next to me. 

“Headache?” She delicately asks. I move my head to what barely resembles a nod, but my answer seemed understandable enough to her since I can feel her lean farther back into her chair as if to end our little chat. 

The bittersweet tang of citrus dances through my nose. My surroundings change and an open book appears in my hands. Studying my surroundings I can see hard plastic chairs, fairy lights, tiled floors, students scattered about, and my teacher at her desk. Next to me is a diffuser that’s suffocating me with the scent of citrus. The kids around me are quickly flipping through the pages of their books.

Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip…

I look down and my right hand is weighed down by chapters and chapters left unread. I try to focus on the words that fill the pages but I can't keep track of the lines or what words I thought I had just read. A sharp pain stabs through my head. I close my eyes but I can still hear the other kids.

Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip…

A thick cloud of fog begins to overcome my thoughts. Strolling down many side paths. Getting more and more lost from the main road of thought. Why can't I just read? Why when I finally see the words can't I put together the sentence? What am I doing wrong?

“Audrey?” 

I remove my hands from my face and am greeted by a man in square glasses. My mom and I walk back with him into a small room. The chair I sit in seems to have equipment attached to it that looks like something from a movie. He pulls down a little lever on the wall which softens the sharp lights. My mom talks to him explaining my struggles in school and the headaches I get afterward. 

“She’s always been a slow reader but it's been much worse this past year. She used to only have a problem in ELA but now it happens in other classes as well. She was getting points off in social studies because she couldn’t answer all the questions since she never finished reading the articles and when she got home she barely had enough energy to do her homework. She also gets these terrible headaches which have ramped up during the school year. They don't happen as often now that it's summer but still too often to be normal.”

Every word was a grain of salt my mom was pouring into my gaping wound. It burned to have to listen to my mom explain everything that was wrong with me out loud.  

I attempt to listen along but the words begin to fade away into a droning sound. The fog spills through the crack under the door and begins to fill the room. Now I can only make out faint shapes of my surroundings. I sit there entranced by the droning noise.

My mind just repeats the disruptive problems my mom mentioned. “She used to only have a problem in ELA but now it happens in other classes as well”. My family always knew that I wasn’t going to be the reader in the family. I have always been slow and didn’t read often unlike my sister. I focused more on science and math and did better in those subjects, though I had pretty good grades overall. But she was right that my overall grades had dropped during the last school year. Then my brain gets stuck on one word “problem”. I'm causing more trouble for others just because I won’t read fast enough. I just need to focus more and stop bothering everyone. I need to just listen and do better.

The hollow shell of my body floats along answering questions like “1 or 2” as he flips through lenses. He also has me look at a digital image as a machine scans my eyes. He sits me and my mom down.

“I believe she may have something called convergence insufficiency.”

Pieces of fog get wicked away as he starts to explain. “It means one of her eyes may be slightly turned more outward causing difficulty to focus on objects. Often making your vision blurred or doubled. This can especially be hard with reading or looking back and forth from the board and a notebook while taking notes since you have to readjust your eyes. It can quickly cause you to strain your eyes and end up with the types of headaches you mentioned. I’m not sure but there is a place they can test for it specifically and help you.”

Still, only my shell is there yet more of me resides there than before. This could mean that it's not my fault. But doubt puts space between me and hope. Keeping it just out of my reach. 

Ding! 

A twin to the old bell however this one seemed to sing as announcing our arrival to this new building and smiled at me as we entered. I sit on a cushy red couch and my mom joins me. After waiting for a while they call me back and have me take a test to see if the doctor's suspicions are right. 

They lead me to a simple machine with a place to look through. I follow their instructions as they tell me what to do. I place my face against it and align my eyes with the holes. In between is a divider that bisects my vision. There are three dots on each side of the paper in front of me. They place a pencil in each hand and instruct me to connect the opposite top and bottom lines and the middle ones all to the point they align in my vision. I follow along like a little marionette doll following what they say without a thought. Only a little voice in my head expressing my doubts. 

How is this going to prove anything? It’s just a piece of paper with dots on it. You're just lazy And troubling others. If you tried you wouldn’t be here in the first place worrying everyone. You're wasting their time just for nothing. 

When I complete what they instructed me I back away. The lines I drew that once looked to have met are a couple of inches apart. My mom and I are led into a room in the back with darker lighting. A woman comes in after us with my piece of paper and measures marks on it with a ruler. When we are all sitting she begins to explain. 

“The test you just did shows how your eyes align together with the two separate images from each eye.”

She folds the paper so the two points are together and holds it up to show us.

“This is how your eyes saw this as you did the test. Now the average distance most people's eyes are separate from this measurement. So if I fold it there you can see the difference between your eyes and people who don't have convergence insufficiency.”

She refolds the paper to the earlier markings and holds it up to show the paper. There is an inch gap between the two points. 

“While the name sounds confusing it explains it pretty well. Convergence means for two things to come together. For example, your vision from one eye and the over converge. Then insufficiency means not enough. So your vision doesn’t come together enough which causes you to strain. We can sign you up for vision therapy to help you train your eyes to strain less and make things easier.”

I gasp for air as the elephant-like weight melts from my chest. The heavy fog in my head swirls like a whirlwind until it all disappears. Her words pull the doubt out of the way, giving me room to grasp onto hope. Nothing was wrong with me. My eyes were just different. Different? I’m fine? I’m fine.

 The ringing starts to fade away. I never noticed the ringing before but all I knew was that it had been a long time since I last heard silence. It was wonderful. 

I will never forget the day I was diagnosed with convergence insufficiency because I realized that my struggles weren’t my fault but something I couldn’t control without proper knowledge and help from others. That day I felt hope for the first time in a long time, and I promise I'll never let go of it. Even if I start to doubt myself again I will remind myself of this moment and the promise I made to myself, and to hold on a little longer and ask for help if I need it.