Hi Everyone,

I am incredibly impressed with Dr. Hall and her team at Wills Eye. They had the pleasure of not only meeting Corinne but spending 5 hrs with her!

Although it was a long day, Corey did an amazing job communicating her answers as the team thoroughly tested color vision, field vision as well as the normal tests to diagnose near/far sighted vision.

Meeting new people that want to use strange looking machines that require no head movement, no blinking yet also require verbal feedback was terrifying to her. The doctors weren’t phased by Corey’s anxiety and patiently waited, redirected and reworded their questions to make her feel more secure. They even went back to the “old fashioned” eye exam (manually holding several vision scopes rather than subject her to the hanging apparatus). They slowly gained her trust and she completed each phase of the exam.

Dr. Hall also ordered an OCT exam because of the pituitary tumor. An OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) is to the eye as the CAT scan is to internal organs. The difference is the OCT is harmless to the patient using light to create high resolution images instead of using radiation. The patient is at no risk and the test can be repeated frequently to measure any changes in the retina and/or serious eye injury. It was fascinating to see the layers of Corey’s eye highlighted like a Doppler radar screen which also showed the location and size of the tumor.

The results of the OCT test will need to be read and evaluated then sent to Dr. West and Dr. Yalamancheli. The three doctors will discuss and determine if and when Corey will have surgery to remove the tumor.

The initial part of the exam showed a vision change. She is more near sighted than her last exam requiring a stronger prescription (compared to the glasses she had at the time of the accident). Her left eye is much worse than her right (due to the impact of the hit to her right side). Structurally her eyes are fine. We believe the field cuts are neurological. As the Brain continues to heal, she may regain some sight as new connections form. The left cut had a slight improvement since her last exam. Unfortunately, we also discovered cuts above and below her center point of vision. Dr. Hall is not sure if the top/bottom cuts are new or newly discovered because of Corey’s increased ability to communicate what she can and cannot see. Regardless, today’s exam will be considered our new baseline exam.

All in all it was a good day…it just felt like it lasted a week long!

Corey, time for both of us to rest our eyes. Good night honey, happy dreams, xoxo