Sarah’s Story
Last year one week after starting second grade, our daughter Sarah began to cry everyday when being dropped off at school. After this continued for well over a month, we took Sarah to a psychologist expecting that the psychologist would work with Sarah on anxiety issues. Instead the psychologist determined that Sarah was struggling due to a combination of attentive deficit disorder and reading and visual processing disorders. Huh?!?!
That began a process of trying to find specialized professionals to assist Sarah in all of these areas. Armed with a recommendation from the psychologist, we made an appointment with Dr. Gurbal at the Vision Performance Center for an evaluation. After about an hour, Sarah came skipping out of the evaluation and said, “Mom, I see two of you.” We laughed then Dr. Gurbal said, “you know she probably does,” and explained what she found during the evaluation. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Gurbal provided us with a written report of Sarah’s evaluation, a plan for Sarah, and most importantly a belief that Sarah’s visual issues would improve.
Weekly Sarah went to “eye training.” And she went happily, looking forward to what she would do that week with Gurbal. She also did her “homework” exercises with minimal prompting – a miracle for any eight year old. After nine months, we began to taper off sessions as Sarah’s visual tracking and convergence improved. Her ability to focus on the board and on her written work was greatly improved and much less a source of frustration for her. Today, Sarah is not crying every morning on the way to school and we attribute a good bit of that to the work done with Dr. Gurbal at the Vision Performance Center.
-Sarah’s Parents
McKenzie’s Story
It started on a family skip trip a few years ago. Our daughter McKenzie had a bad fall, but the doctors at the ski slope confidently told us everything would be okay. Her pediatrician and two neurologists then assured us that she would get better any day now.
But she wasn’t getting better. She couldn’t remember anything, she couldn’t sleep, and she was having headaches every day. Seven weeks after the concussion, we were told, “The concussion impact test shows that your daughter is functioning at only the 1 percentile level. You need to go see a concussion specialist.” The specialist then referred us to Dr. Gurbal for a vision evaluation in February 2013.
Dr. Gurbal discovered that a big reason for McKenzie’s double vision, blurred vision, and severe headaches was because her eyes were not working together properly. McKenzie did weekly therapy sessions with Dr. Gurbal for 4 months and then every other week for another couple of months. The results were incredible; we have seen a significant reduction in her headaches and she is no longer experiencing double vision. We are so grateful that the concussion specialist sent us to see Dr. Gurbal to evaluate McKenzie’s eyes.
The bonus to Dr. Gurbal’s successful treatment of McKenzie was how very nice she and her staff are. They are always on time, professional and friendly. When McKenzie was finished with her treatment, we were truly sorry not to have a reason to stop by every week!
-McKenzie’s parents
