Friendship Grows at Cure Blindness Project Outreach
Stoic and silent, Paul, 90, sits in the 9-passenger van driven by community outreach coordinator Samuel Nji. Paul’s family had explained the need to travel to the hospital and spend the night before his scheduled surgery. Although Paul knows this, he is anxious. It’d been three years since he’d been able to see his children’s faces. He desperately wants the surgery but he is afraid.
If anyone understands the fear and isolation of being blind, it’s Stevenson. He’d been unable to see until recently. City Eye Hospital in Nyeri, Kenya performed sight-restoring cataract surgery on his left eye. He is returning to the hospital to have his right eye corrected.
Whether divine intervention or happy coincidence, these two share a ride to the hospital.
Stevenson bounds into the van, bursting with excitement. He’s counting the minutes until his next surgery. He knows the life-changing effect of the first one. To have sight restored to both his eyes? It seems a miracle beyond measure.
This is the exact right person to be beside Paul as he navigates the unknown waters of his own surgical journey.
“Since I was helped, I want to help others,” explains Stevenson, 82.
Stevenson’s chatter is upbeat, encouraging, and constant during the 30-minute road trip to City Eye Hospital. Once there, Stevenson assigns himself in charge of Paul’s care: taking the man to the bathroom, holding his hand and leading him to the pre-op testing stations, sitting beside him as they wait.
Once registered and having completed pre-op testing, the two men settle into the ward to spend the evening. Stevenson reports that “Paul got up in the night. He was afraid and wanted to leave but I calmed him down and talked to him until he fell asleep.”
The next morning, nurses wake the ward to begin preparations for surgery.
Stevenson enters the operating theater first. Twenty minutes later he’s done. Paul waits patiently for his turn.
“The doctors will fix you,” Stevenson says, gently patting Paul’s back. “There is nothing to be afraid of. Tomorrow when we can see again, we dance.”
As promised, there is dancing. And a little singing. The two celebrate together and a few staff members join in. It’s difficult not to when joy fills the room. Paul is able to see the face of his new friend who walked with him every step of this journey.
This blossoming friendship touched all those who watched it develop and grow. Strangers before their meeting through City Eye Hospital, they will forever be linked by this shared experience.
Photos courtesy of Michele Cardamone Photography
