Category: Inspirational Stories

MIAMI (AFP) – A 60-year-old US grandmother, blind for nearly a decade, has recovered her sight after surgeons implanted a tooth in her eye as a base to hold a tiny plastic lens, her doctors said Wednesday. (continue reading…)

OXFORD – Anything can be achieved with enough determination, no matter what the obstacle. Of this, 24-year-old Samantha Wackford is living proof.

In June, the young woman passed a high school equivalency exam to earn her General Education Degree. While this may not seem like a huge accomplishment for some, for the Guyana native who lost her sight after she was burned by acid, it has been no small feat.

In April of 2002, just two short weeks before she was set to graduate from high school in her homeland, “Sam” (as she is called by her friends), was the victim of an intentional attack, which both blinded her and left her permanently scarred.

After spending more than a year recovering, she moved to Boston. It was there that, while enrolled in an adult independent living program at the Carroll School for the Blind, she met Troy Wackford. The Oxford native, who was in the same program, had been diagnosed at a young age with Retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic eye condition which had caused his vision to gradually deteriorate over time.

It didn’t take long for the two to fall in love, and in October of 2007 they were married. Shortly after, the couple moved to Troy’s hometown.

Despite her loss of vision, Sam Wackford never lost sight of her goal of furthering her education.

“I wanted to get my GED,” she explained. And in September of 2008, she began working toward that goal. Her first step was to sign up for the Adult GED program offered through DCMO BOCES, which is how she met Instructor Anne Walters.

Source for complete article: http://www.evesun.com/news/stories/2009-09-15/7849/Visually-impaired-woman-earns-GED/

(One of Joan Huntley’s stunning pieces of work )

A PARTIALLY sighted artist who taught art and design to Rolling Stone Keith Richard, will have a posthumous exhibition of her art on display in Bexley.

The Joan Huntley memorial exhibition, with many of the works for sale, goes on show in the Austen Gallery at Hall Place, Bourne Road, Bexley, from September 21 until October 18.

And it will fulfil the ambition of her husband of nearly 50 years, Ralph Huntley.

He said: “The actual process and joy of creating pictures was Joan’s only interest.

“It has been my ambition to hold this exhibition in her memory and allow the work to be seen and enjoyed by others.”

Born into an artistic Eltham family, Mrs Huntley was a teacher of art and graphic design.

Her sight was impaired from a young age and she was almost blind in one eye and only partial sight in the other.

But her output of painting was prolific and she continued to work at her home in Glendale, Swanley, until months before her death in 2007.

Source for complete article: http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/4591609.BEXLEY___SWANLEY__Rolling_Stone_s_art_teacher_has_memorial_exhibition/

Eight years ago, a nation watched as hundreds of New York’s bravest made the ultimate sacrifice to help those in need.

Since then, a group of students at one Villa Park middle school has helped raise money each year on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks for their local fire department, while at the same time learning about the men and women that would come to the rescue in the event of a fire.

Students in the blind and visually impaired program at Albright Middle School in Villa Park spent part of their time in summer school making everything and anything patriotic, including American flag pillows, patriotic bracelets, and red, white and blue fans to sell to students, faculty and staff during two lunch periods today.

The school is part of Salt Creek School District 48, where the visually impaired program consists of more than 50 students. About 15 of the students were in the summer school program, and almost all of them participated in helping make the crafts.

Cindy Rukavina, a teacher in the Albright program, said the students have been doing crafts each summer since 2002, and have made nearly 50 different crafts to sell this year. Rukavina said the crafts not only assist with developing skills, but also help the students learn about what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, as well as what firefighters do for the community.

“It’s our way to honor our local firemen who put their lives on the line every day,” Rukavina said. “They would give up their own life to help our own kids, especially the vision-impaired kids who need extra help. … We feel it’s our duty to do something nice for them.”

Later this month, Villa Park firefighters will come to Albright to pick up the money raised by the craft sale. Last year, the sale raised more than $180. Villa Park firefighter/paramedic Matt Sauter said the department uses the money to purchase hats, stickers, and other items to give to children during speeches about fire prevention.

“One of the best fire prevention techniques in the fire service is giving away handouts and educating kids and parents,” Sauter said. “Giving them the opportunity to know that someone will be there and to trust us if we yell to follow us in the event of a fire is important. … It’s good to reassure them we’re going to take care of them if we’re needed.”

Source for complete article: http://www.mysuburbanlife.com/villapark/news/x1170598697/Students-lend-firefighters-helping-hand

CHICAGO—An antibiotic widely used in Africa to treat eyesight-robbing infections seems to help prevent Ethiopian children from dying of other diseases. A study in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association suggests an unintended benefit from efforts to wipe out trachoma, the world’s leading preventable cause of blindness.

The World Health Organization has set 2020 as the target for eliminating trachoma. The United States has been free of the disease since the 1970s, but it persists in 48 countries. In Ethiopia, a hotbed, 40 percent of children under 10 show signs of active trachoma.

A grandfather has described how a massive stroke “miraculously” cured his failing sight, but cost him his ability to speak French.

Malcolm Darby, 70, of Oakham, Rutland, had worn glasses since measles damaged his sight at the age of two. But after waking from surgery to remove a blood clot following a stroke last year, he said he found he had near-perfect vision. Experts say the side-effects of the stroke are “unusual”.

The stroke left Mr Darby paralysed and unable to speak. But when a nurse walked past he realised he could read the words on a newspaper under her arm, which he would have been unable to do without one of six pairs of glasses beforehand.

He said: “I realised I could watch television without my glasses. Now I only use one pair of reading glasses if I’m trying to read and it’s dark.”

Mr Darby is now able to talk again and walks four miles a day.

He said: “I’m on the mend now so every cloud has a silver lining, especially with getting my sight back.

“But before the stroke I could speak French and now I just can’t get a word of it out.”

Joanne Murphy, research liaison officer at the Stroke Association, said: “The effects of a stroke will depend on what part of the brain has been injured.

“We often hear about stroke survivors who have double vision or lose half of their field of vision.

“But it is unusual to hear of someone whose vision has got better following a stroke.

“However, we do hear about survivors who have developed new skills after their stroke.”

Source for complete article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/leicestershire/8234784.stm

“Dai, I want to visit your office,” she said over the phone. “Could you please meet me at Kathmandu Mall?”

Leaving my office at Sundhara, I found her on the steps to the mall. “Let’s go,” I said. She recognized my voice and greeted me humbly, “Oh, you’ve arrived!”

She picked up her stick and slung her white handbag over her shoulder. Holding her left arm, I brought her to my office.

I met Chandra Rekha Shrestha, a visually impaired girl, en route to Shanti Nagar several months ago. She was walking down the road with her white stick, and I saw she was about to walk into a muddy pothole. Had she continued, she might have tripped and fallen, or at least muddied her dress. (continue reading…)

New technology speaks to drivers with cues for driving, making it possible for the visually impaired to get behind the wheel of a car one day, reports Daniel Sieberg.

Elizabeth Troutman is 25 and going blind.

She can’t see the sun rise or the stars at night. She hopes to have children one day, but will never know their smiles or their frowns.

She rides the city bus uptown to work in the mornings, a pretty woman in high heels, with nothing to show she’s almost blind until she steps off the bus and opens a collapsible white cane with a red tip. She tap-taps the pavement, ears alert to approaching cars, feet intuitively following the curve of the sidewalk, then through the glass door and up the elevator to her office. There, a computer reads aloud the words on her screen.

You might expect someone with a progressive disability like hers to be overcome with depression or anger, and some people are. Not Elizabeth. She has faced this future for 20 years, gradually losing eyesight the older she got until all that’s left is a tiny keyhole of sight in her right eye.

Though she became legally blind in high school, she lived in Paris for a semester during college and graduated with honors from Princeton, where some classmates thought at first she drank a lot because of the way she stumbled around campus at night. She now plans to go to law school.

There are, Elizabeth believes, much worse misfortunes than not seeing. In her job as assistant director for development at the Council for Children’s Rights, she meets boys and girls who have been sexually abused, who struggle with autism, whose parents neglect them.

Elizabeth would rather be blind.

Still. If she could see.

Elizabeth – Lizzie to friends – was 5 when her parents found out.

At her annual doctor’s visit, she failed the eye exam. Her parents, Liz and Haynes Lea, weren’t alarmed. Haynes wore glasses and they suspected Elizabeth might need glasses, too. At an Easter egg hunt she ran right past eggs her 2-year-old sister spotted.

They took her to a pediatric ophthalmologist, an appointment that changed their lives so dramatically they remember the date: April 6, 1989.

As parents, we envision endless possibilities for our children, who we hope they become, what they might achieve, the adventures they’ll have along the way. Perhaps unfairly, we project our own expectations on them.

The doctor’s diagnosis was beyond anything Haynes and Liz ever imagined. Or had ever heard about.

Elizabeth, they learned, has a disease called retinitis pigmentosa. It was destroying the retina on the back inside walls of her eyes, where images are captured. She would gradually lose her ability to see.

There was no way to predict how far her eyesight would deteriorate. No way to stop the progression. No cure.

That night, Haynes retreated to the basement of their house so Elizabeth wouldn’t see him cry. He felt weighted down by incredible sadness. And fear. What, he wondered, would become of Elizabeth’s life?

A child’s perseverance

Elizabeth, the oldest of three girls, was too young to understand.

 They told her as much as they felt a 5-year-old could grasp: You’ve got a problem with how you see. And it’s going to get worse. We don’t how bad, but we want you to know we will always be here for you. And we want you to know everything is going to be OK.

Not long after she was diagnosed, Elizabeth was playing in her bedroom, stringing a necklace of beads. It took her much longer than it would have taken another child, as she struggled to thread the tiny string through the tiny holes. Finally, she added the last bead. She was so proud, she held up the necklace for her mother to see. That’s beautiful! Just then all the beads scattered across the floor. Elizabeth had forgotten to knot the end of the string.

Her mother teared up.

Don’t worry, Elizabeth said, I’ll just do it again.

And Elizabeth did.

That perseverance would carry her through the next 15 years, through the ups and downs, through the scrapes and bruises, the sadness and anger, of going blind…..

Source for complete article: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/health/story/898702.html?q=Elizabeth%20Lea