Cataracts

[Ms. Kathy]

Archbishop Desmond Tutu to launch global war on cataract blindness
Thursday July 27, 7:38 pm ET


GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA, July 27 /PRNewswire/ - "We are delighted that Archbishop Desmond Tutu is endorsing Christian Blind Mission International's worldwide '100,000 Miracles' campaign," says Alan Harkey, President of Christian Blind Mission International USA.


Archbishop Tutu will address the vicious cycle of poverty and disability at the International Launch of the global campaign August 8th at the Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa.

"Poverty is difficult to survive," says Archbishop Tutu, "but poverty with disability is almost impossible to survive."

Christian Blind Mission International (CBMI) plays a vital role in rescuing and restoring the lives of people trapped in poverty around the world. CBMI provides services to more than 12 million people - the poorest of the poor living with disabilities - in more than 1,000 projects in over 100 countries regardless of nationality, gender, or religion.

Globally, an estimated 600 million people are living with a disability. Of these, 80% live in low income countries with little or no access to health and rehabilitation services.

According to the World Health Organization, this number is steadily increasing due to chronic diseases, birth defects, AIDS, malnutrition and other poverty related causes. Yet many countries exclude disabilities from the public health and social policies which would protect and support these neglected people.

"We will not meet The Millennium Development Goals if government leaders don't deal with disability issues amongst the poorest of the poor," says Harkey.

One of The MDGs goals, set for 2015, is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Currently, half the people in the world live on less than $2 a day. Although there are 17 million people blind with cataracts, CBMI is waging a war against treatable blindness.

CBMI's "100,000 Miracles" global campaign aims to provide 100,000 sight restoring, life changing cataract operations in 100 days.

Source: Yahoo Finance biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060727/to487.html?.v=1

[Ms. Kathy]

It is great today, even better tomorrow

by Robert McGowan
The poet Gertrude Stein wrote, “A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.

That could very well be. She made explanations for her meaning, or her non-meanings, or whatever, but explanation is not my intent today. I am saying today, from personal experience, that a rose may not necessarily be a rose or, maybe, I am saying that the rose I knew then is not the rose I know today.

You see, I have just had the cataractous lens removed from my only functional eye and a lens transplant. So far, so good. It has been only a few days since the transplant, but I am now seeing “roses” like I’ve never seen them before. Not only numbers, but colors.

Beautiful yellows and golds, bright blues, brilliant reds, bright greens haven’t been a part of my world of colors for a long time. Instead of a washed-out appearance, colors are now vivid and vibrant.

Please understand. I am not trying to elicit any sympathy at all. I am only expressing a feeling of jubilation at seeing roses, like I haven’t seen them for a long time. Green grass is one thing, but really green grass is another.

A friend who had this experience said, “It’s like you have been wearing dusky sunglasses all the time.” And color TV is now really color TV.

Also, philosophically, the experience is interesting. It is obvious that we don’t see the same world. Since the world we see, as an individual, is not the same world that another person sees, it is a wonder that we can agree on as much as we do.

Perhaps it is therefore necessary that we spend a lot of time trying to see each other’s world, and therefore, come to some mutual understanding about two worlds that seem to be different. Maybe we should be congratulated on being successful enough to survive by arriving at an acceptable mutuality.

Another thought, something of tremendous significance: Even with our human mistakes and foibles, with all our obvious political, economic and social faults of 2007, today is undoubtedly the best age in which man has ever lived.

For example: When I was a young boy, people who had surgery to remove a cataractous lens would have to lie in bed for days with their heads between sandbags in order to prevent any movement. If that phase of the operation was successful, there was no such thing as a lens transplant. People had to wear those hideous-looking thick eyeglasses.

The alternative was blindness. After all, a few years preceding the sandbags and thick glasses, the alternative was blindness.

Of course, blindness was not that prevalent, because people didn’t live to the age they do today. The prediction is for an increasing number of elderly.

Recall that, during the early days of exploring and settling in America, the life expectancy of a female was 28 years and 35 for a male. Think of the contrasting numbers of yesterday and today. Think of the contributions of technology to life expectancy and to sight-saving procedures.

The medical advancements in the area of cataract surgery, for example, have been remarkable. I don’t have enough knowledge to imagine the possibilities that exist for improvements in the procedure, but I have no doubt that medical technology will find improvements.

And the miraculous accomplishments that we are enjoying today will, in the future, probably be considered primitive, backward procedures of yesterday.

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