Macular Degeneration - I AM NOT BLIND

by Phyllis
(Sacramento, California)

In January 2008, I lost my sight suddenly while driving on an off ramp on my way to a Sunday brunch.

Thanks to cellphones I got home, called my health care provider, at UC Davis, and received a call back in 20 minutes from an ophthalmologist on that Sunday Holiday weekend.

The next day I was taken to UC Davis hospital on Martin Luther King Holiday and examined and told I had Macular Degeneration and that they would call me the next day when the Eye Clinic opened.

They called the next day at 7;30AM and hurried me over to the clinic. After 6 hours, three retinal surgeons, and multiple retina pictures, Dr David Telander started me on Lucentis injections, less than 50 hours after the eye eruptions occured.

Every four weeks I went back for more injections. After the third round, I began to see fog, then figures moving. Slowly, my vision returned and by March I was told I did not need more injections because I passed the 20/20 vision test.

I credit the speed in which I was treated, Dr. Telander, and God with my recovery. To repay God, I worked for three and one half years as a volunteer for The Foundation Fighting Blindness, going to seminars, here in Sacramento and in San Francisco, and staying up all night studying eye diseases on my computer like this column.

I have given over twenty-five lectures about Gordon Gund and the Foundation,and on eye diseases research and healthy things to do to help yourself - mainly not give up hope

I answered calls for information and help until the Los Angeles office called and canceled my work.I guess God thought I payed my debt. I still take eye vitamins with lutein, fish oil, eat an eye diet with fish three times a week, etc,have regular eye exams, and still have 20/20 vision following my own lectures advise.

I once trained teachers for Baylor University so it was an easy transition to teach vision health.

Phyllis

Sacramento, California