I actually made some noticeable progress on the afghan and it felt great. (After a four hour nap–not over this bug yet.)
Meantime, in case you know anyone with dyslexia, or just for sheer curiosity’s sake, I recommend this article. It says that the patterns of cones in the eyes (there’s a good graphic of them here* about halfway down) are supposed to be different between the two eyes so that the brain parses out the images via the differences. But the cones are lined up the same in dyslexics, so that mirrored images (think d and b) appear the same.
Fascinating. And they offer something one could do about it, with a simple flashing light. A little hope with your science.
*That would be at https://askabiologist.asu.edu/rods-and-cones but their website will not let me link directly to it.