“Thank you” falls so short of what I feel towards the Lighthouse.

In life, I rode the highs, and when the bad times came I rolled with the punches. I handled a motorcycle wreck, business collapse, foreclosure, and bankruptcy. I always said, “We’ll get back on top of this; this is just a setback.”

Then my eyesight began to go. I went to bed one night and woke up blind in my left eye. The diagnosis – cataracts. In a year the right eye would be the same.

It got worse. At work I used a 4X magnifier in my pocket just to do a poor get-by attempt. I could only drive to work out of necessity, but my vision was so bad I could not tell if a traffic signal was red or green until I was right up to it.

In spite of my best efforts, my boss was about to have to let me go. I tried all local, state and federal institutions, only to find out that unless I am on disability they would not do anything. I was desperately trying to stay off disability. My wife spent hours (days) on the computer and found the Lighthouse. After getting confirmation that you would pay for my surgery the whole world lifted off my shoulders. My boss assigned me jobs that I could do with competency (i.e. they carried me until the surgery).

The cataract on my left eye was the worst my doctors had ever seen. It was so thick that their equipment couldn’t see through it. After surgery they tested my eye. I had gone from blind to 20/35. The nurse testing me cried. The right eye went even better; 20/20!

You and your organization have given me my life back. Going blind was the worst thing that has happened to me in my 54 years. It takes away all your hopes and dreams and life without hopes and dreams in not worth living. Now…

I can do my job.
I can drive.
I can read.
I can see.

And I owe it all to YOU. It is a debt I can never repay.

Gary