Blind for 65 Years, Now Let There Be Colors!

Blind for 65 years, now 'new life and light'

New cornea donated by an 'angel' opens the world for a Cheektowaga mother of 12

By GENE WARNER
News Staff Reporter
12/10/2006

Charles Lewis/Buffalo News
"I was like a little kid. I was ecstatic. It was like a miracle." Patricia A. Stanton, who regained sight after a corneal transplant
The day after her eye surgery, Patricia A. Stanton sat in her surgeon's office, filled with anxiety about a moment she had never even dreamed would happen.
Since birth, she had been living as a blind person - an independent woman who had married and raised 12 children.

She could see a little, mostly shapes and cloudy images. But she had never seen the full beauty of a waterfall, the varied hues of a sunset - or the subtle details of her children's faces.

Until Oct. 12, the day after her corneal transplant, when she received the ultimate October surprise inside the office of Dr. James J. Reidy.

"When he took the patch off, I opened up my eye," she remembered. "It was blurry, but I said, "Oh, my God.' I saw brightness. I had been living in this cloud for so long."

She got up and walked outside, by herself. Even through the blurriness, all the colors others take for granted began to emerge from her lifelong darkness.

She could see the green leaves on a tree. She could see a squirrel, with its different colors. She saw cars driving by. "I was like a little kid. I was ecstatic," she said. "It was like a miracle."

A couple of days later, she looked into her bathroom mirror and saw something else new - tears of joy flowing down her face.

"Instead of clouds when you looked into my eyes, there was this perfect beautiful eye shining so bright, like a light from heaven, from my face," she said.

Later, sitting at the dining room table in her Cheektowaga home, she realized something she had never known. "My one daughter, Denise, she has her father's eyes," she said. "I looked at her and said, "I'm staring at you, and I'm looking at your father.' "

There also are bittersweet moments. She now can look at photos of her two late children, Laurrie, who died at age 20, and Holly, who lived for only 17 months.

"I just would love to have seen them clearly," she said. "Now I can just look at their pictures. It's sad."

Her husband of 46 years, Michael, had been her eyes until his death in 2004.

"My poor husband, he wanted this so bad for me," she said. "Somebody told me Mike can rest now, knowing I can take care of myself."

Stanton's gift of light came from one of about 500 Western New York donors whose corneas are given through Upstate New York Transplant Services each year. About 800 of those 1,000 corneas are transplanted here or elsewhere, although just under half of those are donated in Western New York.

Stories such as Stanton's help spread the message.

"Her case sums up why we do what we do - the opportunity to save a life or enhance a life," said Mark J. Simon, the chief executive officer. "Her case symbolizes our mission."

Stanton was born with a serious eye infection that caused extensive scarring of both corneas. Long before the days of mainstreaming, the young Patricia Carpenter attended sight-saving classes at School 24 and special classes for the visually impaired at Girls Vocational.

She felt different from other children, but that didn't stop her.

"I was the kind of kid who went up to people and said, "My name is Pat Carpenter. What's yours?'

"My family never treated me as handicapped. I was treated like the other kids. If they had mollycoddled me, I probably would have been in a shell. They didn't do that, and I'm grateful for it."

As she aged, she experienced problems with what little sight she had. Once, she went completely blind for 10 days. Other times, she had visual blackouts. With her weaker right eye, she could see only a little bit of light.

"I used to pray to God: If I lose my sight [completely], I want to go home."

She couldn't read the newspaper, so her husband would sit down every night and read it to her. When she walked into a strange environment, she felt bewildered, so her husband would take her hand and guide her.

He was her rock, until his death in March 2004.

"He was in here dying, and I'd look out the window and say, "Lord, what am I going to do?' I was scared."

Last summer, Stanton's ophthalmologist, Dr. Theodore P. Prawak, told her about the technology that could restore sight in her better eye, the left one, through a corneal transplant.

Fearful of losing what vision she had, she met with Reidy, the medical director of eye and tissue services for Upstate Transplant. He told her the risks were relatively low.

"Mrs. Stanton," she remembers him telling her, "you've been in the dark too long, and now you're going to see."

In the Oct. 11 surgery performed by Reidy, the 65-year-old Stanton had a corneal transplant, a cataract removal and a lens implant.

Stanton has written a letter to the family of her donor.

"I want you to know that your precious angel who donated their cornea will walk with me through a new life and light and see the world all over again for the first time with me," she wrote.

"Your family has my greatest blessings and gratitude for allowing me to see the world while I am still here, instead of staying in the darkness until I go with the angels some day."






This story was a sad but inspirational article. It mad me think of all the people who take these gifts for granted. It is pretty amazing what our technology can do today.
Sometimes, when I think of my own eyesight, I think that things couldn't getworse for them. after hearing this story, I know now, that having just a bad stigmatism and not being able to see very far away, isn't that bad at all. I am very thankful to have eyes to see such beautiful things out of. I love to watch the sun and to see water comecome rushing from the top of its fall. I love to see the precious life that grows on this earth, and the beauty it can make. What an amazing place we live in, and we do not take very good care of it.
I think that the main point the writer is trying to prove, is that what one person can do in his or her lifetime, will change another person's life, Forever!

The Secret Letter

Click the above link to read the three page letter yourself, sdo that you won't feel lost when I begin to babble on. :)


Instructions
Discusses your thoughts on the article and also how it relates to Slaughterhouse-Five.

Consider the following points as you write your post:

How does the soldier's experiences in, "The Secret Letter", compare to Billy Pilgrim's experiences in Slaughterhouse-Five?

In chapter one, Vonnegut writes about the difficulties of writing a true war story. Is the author of "The Secret Letter" successful in his attempt to capture the truth? In which ways is he successful? And in which ways is he not successful? Does he encounter similar hurtles as Vonnegut?

What is the author's purpose for writing the, "Secret Letter"? Is the author pro or anti war, or neither?


This article relates to slaughter house five becuase they are both about the war. In the novel, the main charater is going back in time and telling his stories of the war and what he though of it. In the letter, the soldier that is writting, is telling what he sees in the war, and his feeling towards war. He describes what he dislikes and basically says there is nothing to like when he says that there weren't any good moments really in the war, except when they find the kidnappers of Jill Carroll. In both the novel and the letter, Billy Pilgrams experiences are very much like the secret soldiers experiences. They both have dislikes about the wars and both don't want to be there. Billy Pilgram doesn't like the bad parts of war and gets deep in the subject of describing what he dislikes. The secret soldier doesn't get to much into depth, but does state that, "Worst Sound is that crack-boom off in the distance that means an IED or mine just went off. You just wonder who got it, hoping that it was a near miss rather than a direct hit. Hear it practically every day." He says that the second worst sound is "Our artillery firing without warning. The howitzers are pretty close to where I work. Believe me, outgoing sounds a lot like incoming when our guns are firing right over our heads. They'd about knock the fillings out of your teeth."

Between Billy Pilgram and the secret soldier, they both have the lose of a friend in common during the war and the secret soldier states how sad it makes him feel. He says, "The saddest moment is having an infantry battalion commander hand me the dog tags of one of my Marines who had just been killed while on a mission with his unit. Hit by a 60mm mortar. He was a great Marine. I felt crushed for a long time afterward. His picture now hangs at the entrance to our section area. We'll carry it home with us when we leave in February."

In chapter one, Vonnegut writes about the difficulties of writing a true war story. The Secret letter author is successful in describing some things about the war. Though in the begining, he try's to explian to his reader, that it is difficult to write to someone about the war, that isn't confidential or to gross. He does however, make an attampt, and does a good job at wirting without giving private information out to others or describing something that is disgusting. The author mainly tells hia feelings and some of his experiences. Vonnegut does pretty much the same thing, but does give some graphic information that would make you not want to close you eyes. However, these two authors have many things in common but also have different pionts of telling about the war. They both seem to state that they dislike the war, and are agianst it, as many others are also!!!

Life in 4D!!!

Tralfamadorians view the universe in a way that is vastly different from our own. In your blog, please explain how the tralfamadorians view the universe and the consequences associated with it. Discuss pros and cons, and whether or not Billy's mission to educate the public would be beneficial to society.
Points to consider:
-free will
-accountability for ones actions
-motivation to better ones self

(: (: Tralfamadorians view the universe as in time. It views the universe in moments, all at once, like a whole bunch of scenes put together to create one big picture. The people are viewed as millipeads, because they see us doing the whole day in a flash. We only see our life as one frame, followed by another frame. Tralfamadorians view it all together. For example, you can take a roll of film, with a movie on it, and tape it around the room. You see it all but don't have a clue on whats going on. The tralfamadorians see that, but they can process it better than. Also, for example, you are at the football game, and you don't know who is going to win. The Tralfamadorians can see all that, before it happens. :) :)

(: (: Billy's mission to educate the public would not be beneficial because when you see something that is going to happen in the future, most likely, you can not change it if you wanted. For example, if you knew that the football team was going to lose, then if you tryed to cheat your way through it, they would most likely still lose. Or for another example, if you knew how your death might happen, chances are, you can not change it, because you can not change free will. What it is, wil be. In a way that this method of informing the public would be good, is that if you knew that in a horse rade, Oscar was going to be sally, then you would most definitly vote for oscar to win so that you could win. It is a way of bettering ones self and the people around them. :) :)

Kristin's Amazing Blog!!!

Kristin H's Amazing Blog!!!

Mary O'hare and the War

You'll pretend you were men istead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-lovoing, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs" (Slaughter-House-Five, p. 14).
In your blog, please respond to the above quotation. Do you agree or disagree? Do movies help promote war? Were they more likely to promote war in the past. Please explain your position.
Discuss the two or three war films that you have seen. Which ones would you concider pro-war and which ones would you consider anti-war?


I Agree with this quotation from the story Slaughter-House-Five. "Men" are babies when it comes to a life or death situation, like war. They pretend that they are really tough and they tell every one that war was not bad at all. Deep down inside, they were scared and screemed like babies when things got outragious.

Movies help to promote war, though it makes people more like a baby, or more like a man, depending on that person. Movies are not to the exact reality of war. Producers make war seem unrealistic, by making it less bloddy, or adding more of a people plot into the plot line instead of a major war plot. For example, I have seen the movies SavingPrivate Ryan, Full Metal Jacket and Behind Enemy Lines. They are all very different war movies. Saving Private Ryan is more about saving a man from the war, and it wan't totally about the war itself. Full Metal Jacket is more of a comedy and it is to show that men are babies but practice can make it better. And finally, Behind Enemy lines has a war invovled but it is not totally about the war. It is about living through a bad time during the war and trying to get out.

What is meaningful to me?

Many things mean alot to me. Things have different meanings towards diffierent people for different situations, and that should be respected. But now lets get down to the knitty griddy. My friends mean alot to me. They are the ones that look out for me and I look out for them. They help me when I need it the most. A friend is a hand to help guide you, a shoulder for you to cry on and an ear to listen to your stories.

My future means alot too. It is what will become of me. My future depends on what I do now, and that is very important. For example, School also means alot to me because it is a part of my future. I am learning, to go to college, and then to become a responsible, independent human being.

My health means alot also because I want to be healthy now, inorder to be healthy in the years to come. The people that love me are very meaningful to me. How i feel means alot to me. I am happy to be who I am and that is important. Though mainly, the things that mean alot to me, are things that are very important in my everyday life.

"Fame is a fickle food"

Fame is a fickle food
Emily Dickinson
1659

Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate
Whose table once a
Guest but not
The second time is set.

Whose crumbs the crows inspect
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the
Farmer’s Corn—
Men eat of it and die.



To me this peom means that when a person becomes famous, they are only given one chance. It is then taken for granted and people become too conceeded. In the poem, we the fans, are the crows mentioned in the sixth line and we are "inspecting" what happens when fame becomes your plate of food. In the last two lines, "Flap past it to the farmers corn- men eat of it and die" means that it is like a contagious disease that seems to kill when it is taken in the wrong hands.

I really liked and enjoyed reading this poem above. I have posted it above, for your qown sake. I ecspecially liked the title because it sounded pretty catchy. It made me think "wow, I wonder what this is about?". So go on and read it. I hope you will love it just as much as I do.

What do I think about the "Rats" poem?

Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump
by David Bottoms

Loaded on beer and whiskey, we ride
to the dump in carloads
to turn our headlights across the wasted field,
freeze the startled eyes of rats against mounds of rubbish.

Shot in the head, they jump only once, lie still
like dead beer cans.
Shot in the gut or rump, they writhe and try to burrow
into garbage, hide in old truck tires,
rusty oil drums, cardboard boxes scattered across the mounds,
or else drag themselves on forelegs across our beams of light
toward the darkness at the edge of the dump.

It's the light they believe kills.
We drink and load again, let them crawl
for all they're worth into the darkness we're headed for.


I think That the poem "Shooting rats at the bibb county dump" is the craziest poem I have ever read. I think that it is about "people" who drink to much and shoot the rats in the fields, and they have no feelings about it. By saying that they believe that darkness keeps them safe, it is when they seem to still get killed

Maybe the poem is trying to state that people do things they normally wouldn't do, when they drink, which is a known proven fact. Possibly, this poem is trying to send the message that "everything is not what it is seems to be, ecspecially when you want it to be." The darkness is supposed to be like a safety net for the rats when they are scared.