ABOUT MY JOURNEY

ABOUT MY JOURNEY


Welcome,

I wanted to set up a blog to help others with low vision. This is for anyone who may have poor vision. I lost sight in my right eye in 2001. I can see some (20/150 ) with the left eye. I will list the things I have found over the past years that have greatly help me. If you have any questions please ask. If I only help one person it's worth setting up this blog.

Thank you,
Frances



I was born on February 14, 1962 . My mother's water broke four days before my birth. I was the fourth child so she had my sister and brothers at home. After I was born my lungs clasped. I was put into an incubator. Our pediatrician told my parents I wouldn't survive the night. I was in the incubator for the next three weeks. I weighted under 5 lbs. I was always told that the Kennedy's had a child who had the same complication I did but he died. 


hhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Bouvier_Kennedyave posted the details of Patrick Kennedy's birth.




Patrick Bouvier Kennedy was born by emergency caesarean section five and a half weeks early at the Otis Air Force Base Hospital in Bourne, Massachusetts. His birth weight of 4 pounds 10½ ounces (2.11 kg) medically classified him as premature.[1] Right after his birth, he was transferred to Boston Children's Hospital where he died two days later of hyaline membrane disease. His obituary in The New York Times stated that, at that time, all that could be done for a victim of hyaline membrane disease "is to monitor the infant's blood chemistry and to try to keep it near normal levels."
The infant's death from hyaline membrane disease, now more commonly called respiratory distress syndrome, helped spark new public awareness of the disease and further research. As of 2004, the disease has an overall mortality of less than 15%—and is much less fatal among mildly to moderately premature infants, such as with the Kennedys' infant son. Also, treatment modalities are now widely available in developed countries, such as continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), pulmonary surfactant replacement, and improved respirator technology, that either did not exist or were unavailable in 1963.
A funeral mass was held on August 10, 1963, in the private chapel of Cardinal Richard Cushing in Boston. The child was initially buried at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts


After I was brought home my father's sister Lillie often inquired about me. She worked at a hospital in Monroe , Louisiana. As she probably knew there were complications to being in an incubator for three weeks. When I was 6 months old my parent noticed I would laugh only when someone's face was close to mine. My parents found out I had cataracts. This was the result to the oxygen in the incubator. So on my second birthday my cataracts were removed in Oxford Mississippi. I have a picture of me with my birthday cake and a patch over my eye. This was the first of many surgeries


Here is the definition of a cararact.



The History of Cataract Surgery
Each year, cataract surgery enables millions of people to improve their vision. It is one of the most frequently performed and successful operations in the world today. Although cataract surgery has been performed since ancient times, the last half-century has seen remarkable refinements of the procedure

The word cataract comes from the Greek meaning waterfall. Until the mid 1700s, it was thought that a cataract was formed by opaque material flowing, like a waterfall, into the eye. We now know that the clouding of the normally transparent crystalline lens within the eye, suspended in place by thousands of strands called zonules, is a result of aging, metabolic changes, injury, radiation, toxic chemicals or drugs.

More to come......