Prevent Blindness America has announced the winners of its first ever "See America" contest, an effort to educate Americans about the importance of preventive eye exams to promote overall vision health. After receiving more than 100 entries from across the country, the national non-profit group dedicated to preventing blindness and preserving sight will award the grand prize of four complimentary plane tickets to any U.S. destination to Sharon Boswell of Lexington, Ky. The first runner-up, Phillip Roberts, also of Lexington, Ky., will receive a pair of complimentary plane tickets.
Hollyn was first diagnosed [with anisometropic amblyopia and strabismus] in September of 2007. I was totally unaware she was having any vision problems. I took her in for a three year old vision screening and was shocked to discover how poorly she was seeing. I was in tears halfway through the exam. My baby couldn't see. My image of the perfectly healthy and normal child was shattering before me. I was devastated. We immediately began occlusion therapy and vision therapy with Hollyn as well as corrective lenses. She was like a different child...she started to love books, puzzles, coloring...all the things most children love. Hollyn had not shown the attention span yet to do those activities. I now know that was due to her vision impairment. It literally changed the day she got her glasses. As Christmas rolled around last year, I asked her several times what she wanted Santa to bring her. Every time the answer was the same...an American Girl doll with glasses and a telescope. The doll I could understand. She wanted some visual affirmation that pretty girls DO wear glasses. The telescope I couldn't figure out. So, one day I just asked her. "Hollyn, why on earth do you want a telescope?" She said, "Mommy, don't you know, with a telescope you can see everything!!!" My heart just broke. She thought if I bought her a telescope her vision problems would go away. Pretty intense for a three year old.
If I could take Hollyn anywhere in the United States...it would be to one of the American Girl Place Stores and a space center where she could experience the wonders of all a telescope can see with someone to explain it all to her. I know it's not Christmas now but, I still have some wishes to grant...
I have astigmatisms and nearsightedness, corrected 12 years ago by radial keratotomy and automated lamellar keratoplasty.Today I wear a mild glasses prescription and have regular eye care check-ups.
The C-section delivery of my quadruplets is the experience that vision impairment/loss would have caused me to miss. After six months of an intense pregnancy, my wife faced blood pressure issues and was forced to deliver our four premature babies...on November 4, 2005, my 35th birthday. Even though they were tiny--two boys and two girls, under two pounds each--witnessing their arrival into the world is the most amazing thing that my eyes have ever beheld. Amazing...and beautiful!!! A team of twenty-some doctors, nurses and specialists was in the room, arranged in four groups to take one baby each. Nineteen days later, our daughter Emily, who had gotten a terrible infection called m.r.s.a., succumbed to it, and died in our arms in the hospital courtyard. Of course, this was the saddest moment of our lives, but was also very beautiful, and one that we are grateful that we were able to witness due to the blessing of sight and proper eye care. Not a day goes by when we don't wish that Emily were with her siblings, but to watch her go to heaven was an unforgettable grace. The third best experience that we are grateful to see is less of a moment and more like a collection of moments. Every day we get to watch these beautiful little children grow and learn and play and recover from their early, early start. Because they were born just short of 27 weeks, each of them had some mild ROP, but several wonderful doctors provided them with great treatment, and they were somehow spared from the vision impairment issues that many former preemies are dealt. Joy is the only word that can be used to describe the experience of watching these three little ones discover life!
Arizona is the place in the United States where we would visit! When we found out that we were pregnant with quads, we were residents of Georgia, but decided to complete the pregnancy in Arizona to be with some high-order multiple specialists there. The first two experiences described above took place not in our home state, but across the country in a very special place. We ended up spending this scary, heartbreaking, tumultuous time far from home, and lived there for five months. There are two reasons why we would like to go back to Arizona: 1) Of course, we would love to show the kids where they were born, and to place flowers in the hospital courtyard where their sister passed away. Now that they are old enough to see and understand some things, it would be great to take them back there and have a tear-filled reunion with the doctors and nurses that gave them life. 2) Because our five months in Arizona were filled with bedrest and trauma, we never got to do anything recreational. We would do anything to take the kids to see the Grand Canyon!!!
