From Soccer Field to Career as a VT

For Vision Therapist Grace Casciola, her path to Dr. Rick Graebe’s office in Versailles started on a soccer field in Louisville.

Playing for Berea College, Casciola executed a perfect sliding tackle, but the collision with her opponent resulted in injuries to her head and one eye.

While her opponent was taken from the field, Casciola continued playing.

She knows this only because that’s what she was told. She remembers none of it.

The drive with her mother to their home in Lawrenceburg to pick up her father, and then to a hospital in Lexington, is all a blank for Casciola. She had suffered a concussion.

A month later, in her first game back, she suffered a second concussion when she was hit in the head with the ball.

“I told my coach I could only play for ten minutes, which I spent falling over and bumping into people. I couldn’t really see,” she said.

That ended her playing career, but she still finished out the semester with a 3.82 GPA. It was difficult.

Along with memory loss, she fell asleep during the day and once passed out in a math class. Casciola took three classes that spring and had to teach herself how to read and write again.

This struggle continued until a local eye doctor recommended Dr. Graebe, a behavioral optometrist in Versailles who recommended Vision Therapy treatment.

Vision Therapist Jennifer Ciecorka led Casciola through VT, working on convergent and divergent exercises that helped Casciola improve her eye tracking.

After 25 weeks, Dr. Graebe was astonished by how far she had come.

Casciola graduated the program after nine months and began taking online classes at Arizona State University.

She had plans to move to Arizona when she was asked to interview for a position as a Vision Therapist. Casciola accepted on the spot.

Today, Casciola, 22, continues her online classes toward a child development degree, and works as a Starbucks employee, a nanny for a family in Lexington, and as a Vision Therapist where she helps eight patients.

“I love my job,” Casciola said. “I have a path and can connect with people. Relaying my story to patients gives them hope. People are healing because of this program.”

Casciola spreads the word about VT. One of her friends, a soccer player at Transylvania University, is now a VT patient.

“She’s super insightful, extremely intelligent, mature beyond her years,” Dr. Graebe said. “She truly cares about helping others, and she has a story. All the traits of a good therapist.”