What's Wrong With Dad?

Dad mentioned eye problems in the past...Things like misjudging distances while driving, seeing things turned backwards, and the curious disappearing of digital numbers on his alarm clock. All the specialists insisted there nothing wrong with his eyes. For years my father was misdiagnosed over and over again. His vision difficulties were dismissed as being "all in his mind," and the unusual cause of his degenerative brain disorder slipped covertly under the radar.

We didn't expect to hear that within the next two years, dad would be legally blind. That prediction came from a Neurologist. Unfortunately he was the last doctor in a series of six we'd consulted. It took us three years to discover Dad's vision problems were caused by Posterior Cortical Atrophy, a visual variant of Alzheimer's Disease. Although this news was painful to digest we understood facing our demons was far more productive than hiding from them, accepting a misdiagnosis, or chalking dad's vision complaints up to "old age."

Today, Dementia related illnesses remain elusive to the medical community. Although we continue to chip away at Alzheimer’s with new medical breakthroughs, until we find a cure there’s much left to discover. In my father’s case over a course of three years, we consulted with two General Practitioners, two Optometrists, an Ophthalmologist, Radiologist, Psychiatrist, and Neurologists to come up with an accurate diagnosis. Had we listened to the first recommendation for Cataract surgery and left it at that, dad would still be struggling to navigate through a shadowy world, legally blind, but with 20/20 vision.