Susana, thanks to your help, has been transformed! In our last newsletter in the Spring, we shared a story about a young woman, Susana, who had a badly injured and infected eye. She used her long dark hair to keep it out of view and she did her best to stay out to the limelight.
When we saw her, she was having no physical pain and due to her family’s poverty and the long distance to an eye doctor, she and her family had no choice but to just let it be.
This is a glaring example of lack of access to eye care.
Thanks to your donations, we had funds to help Susana. In May our eye health promoter, Felipe and Susana’s father, took Susana to Guatemala City to the eye clinic Visualiza. The doctors saw the gravity of Susana’s problem, a boiling infection which could affect not only her vision, but if untreated, her life.
They were able to remove the eye, which had been blind for some time, and gave her a temporary prosthetic eye for the accompanying photo. Immediately her self-image went up. There is a significant healing process for Susana. The swelling needs to go down. The tissue in her eye socket needs to heal. But, soon Susana will be fit with a permanent prosthesis.
As you can imagine, this will be a transformational event for this young woman. She will no longer need to hide behind her hair. She will no longer have to live in the shadows.
I will be seeing Susana in August and look forward to hearing her story. I’ll share it with you.
Look into the eyes of someone whose life is different because of your gift.
Scott Pike