Woman Back to Work Thanks
to Restored Eyesight

This story appeared in the Provena United Samaritans Medical Center newsletter.

Today’s economy can make it hard to find work. It can be even harder to find work
when your eyesight is fading.

Darcy, a resident of Danville, Illinois, was having a tough time with everyday activities. Her vision had been gradually getting worse. She went to her eye doctor, thinking only that she might need glasses.

“I had a job in a billing department and it became difficult,” Darcy explains. “Numbers started to blur together. I have never had to wear glasses before, and thought that was all I was going to need.”

After a visit to her optometrist, glasses did help for a few months. She then had to use a hard contact lens. The shape of her cornea was changing.

“I was a little taken back when they diagnosed me with keratoconus,” Darcy recalls. Keratoconus is a condition in which the cornea, the front part of the eye, becomes thin and more cone-shaped as opposed to the normal round shape. This changes the way light enters the eye, and causes distorted vision.

“It became so bad in my left eye that I really could not see much out of it at all,” says Darcy. Then, in October of 2007, Darcy was referred to a cornea specialist. She learned that keratoconus usually affects both eyes, but not always - and not always at the same rate of change. Darcy underwent cornea transplant surgery on her left eye in the fall of 2008.

“I had some trouble at first with the new cornea not healing like it should,” she recalls, “but after a few months, and a few follow-up visits to my surgeon, it got much better.”

Now, with the aid of her new cornea and prescription glasses, Darcy has 20/25 vision in her left eye.

“My right eye is corrected with glasses, and we are watching it as someday I may need a transplant in that eye too,” she explains. “Thanks to my wonderful doctors, the Eye-Bank, and the generosity of my donor, I can lead a normal, productive life. I have my independence back. I can see my beautiful daughter and work a full time job.”

About 40,000 sight-restoring cornea transplants are performed in the United States every year, according the Eye Bank Association of America. Without the generosity of eye donors, their families and the support of eye bank and hospital staff, these transplants would not be possible.

The best way to ensure a donor’s wishes are carried out after his or her death is to sign up on the Illinois Organ/Tissue Donor Registry, available through the Eye-Bank’s I Joined! Web site, www.IJoined.org. The Eye-Bank also urges all people to discuss eye, organ and tissue donation with their families.

The Illinois Eye-Bank is a charitable nonprofit organization. For more information about the Eye-Bank or about becoming a donor, please contact David Hearn, Regional Coordinator, at (800) 548-4703, ext. 772 or dave@illinoiseyebank.org.