Special update on David

It's time to give a special update on David. As most of you know, he went totally blind last August 1. For months after that, he was unable to see even light and dark.

Then, a month or 2 ago, he did begin to see a little light and dark. He didn't want to tell anyone at the time, though, because it was so little and because it was unclear whether it would ever get any better or not. Also, he was trying very hard not to get his OWN hopes up too much.

About 2 or 3 weeks ago, he began to notice some steady and slow, but noticeable, improvement. He even got to the point that he could see very large print if he used a magnifying glass.

Unfortunately, about a week to 10 days ago, the trend reversed itself. Within only 3 or 4 days he went all the way back to total darkness. As you can imagine, this was very depressing for him! He seems to be feeling a little better today.

Of course, no one can tell what the future may hold. This whole blindness has been a mystery from the very beginning. All the eye doctors have been unable to find anything wrong with his eyes, although they also have clearly determined that he cannot, in fact, see. Neither the CAT scan nor the MRI were able to detect any problems in the brain. Nevertheless, it's quite clear that there IS some problem there, just nothing that shows up in those scans. The bottom line is that no one knows exactly why David is blind or what the prognosis, either long- or short-term, might be. That, in itself, is unsettling and means that we can't even plan with much certainty.