Hey Mark! Charity Livestream Thing!
Hey Mark! I saw that the last charity livestream was for a fan’s friend and I thought maybe if I share my story we could raise money for something that has not only affected me personally, but millions of people in the world. What I’m referring to are cataracts, while more common in the elderly, they can happen to anyone. Specifically, cataracts are cloudings in the eye lens which can prohibit someone’s sight, or grow and completely blind them. They can happen in both or only one of the eyes but can’t spread to the other, thankfully. And as I said before, they usually happen with age, they commonly occur around 40-50 years old.
There are four types of cataracts, secondary, traumatic, congenital, and radiation. Secondary cataracts are caused by some earlier eye problem, traumatic cataracts are caused by some sort of injury or trauma to the eye, congenital cataracts are cases where a child is born with them (usually in both eyes and also usually don’t cause much trouble), and radiation cataracts are when someone contracts a cataract from some sort of exposure to radiation. Cataracts can range in severity from only needing glasses, to having to get surgery. Now that I completely bored you with a report on cataracts, let’ set into my story.
I was born with a unilateral congenital cataract, which means that it was only in one of my eyes, my right one to be specific. My parents were very lucky they found out when early on in one of my newborn checkups. Sadly it was pretty severe, not to mention rare, and my mom joined dozens of support groups and searched through treatment options. They started patching my left eye so that I was forced to use my right and had to put eye drops in my right one, which young me did not appreciate at all. They went from doctor to doctor and eventually settled on one a pretty long way from where we lived, but it was worth it as he was an amazing doctor and definitely new what he was doing. I started seeing him when I was about 5 years old after about 3 other doctors I think? And other than the doctors I saw before who wanted to put me into surgery when I was just a baby, he waited a while and we went to him every 6 months for examinations.
In first grade, when I was about 6 years old, they decided it was time for me to go into surgery. Now, cataracts occur in the eye lens so the surgery consisted of doctors taking a microscope and using a laser, cut open my eye, take the lens out, and replace it with an artificially made lens. 6 year old me had no idea what I was getting into. We had the surgery and everything went smoothly, and now I have friends who like to say I have a robot eye. Now after the surgery I had some muscle problems in my eye, a “lazy eye” as people call it, and a couple summers ago I had to get yet another surgery to fix that. I will also sometime in the future have to undergo another one as my right eye is far sighted and my left eye is near sighted which will likely get worse. Now I will never be able to see as well as other people but one cool thing I have gotten out of the whole ordeal was heterochromia which is pretty neato. If I had gone blind, however, would have been able to do many of the things I Love today, such as art, theater, dancing, reading, and others. So I am very grateful for everything that has helped me be able to see.
Many people aren’t as lucky as I am though, and many go blind from different cataracts. So hopefully my story can inspire you for future charity livestreams. I don’t know what I’d be doing if I’d had gone blind and I can’t imagine what it’s like for those who have.
Some charities that help those with cataracts are Mission Cataract USA, and The World Cataract Foundation. Thanks for reading, and if you aren’t Mark, please help me signal boost this to him so that we can help others with cataracts.
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