Cataract Chronicles-25 years
As I celebrate my 25th year volunteering as an eye surgeon in Southeast Asia. I am delighted to share photos and stories about the vision challenges and the people and cultures of India, Nepal, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. - Dr. Gary Barth
Chronicle 32 - Determined Cataract Patient: Who knows how long she still has to walk in the Himalayas in her flip-flops?
The occasion: A two-day free cataract surgery eye camp based in a school in the Nepalese Himalayan foothills.
A radio advertisement promoted a free cataract evaluation early in the morning at a schoolyard below a city called Dadeldhura. Even though it is a city of more than 150,000, there are no local eye surgery options to avoid hours of tortuous roads.
Our team arrived and set up in a four-room house: one for surgery, one for staff changing, one for screening, and the kitchen for sterilization and instrument processing. The hopeful patients were to arrive at the nearby school courtyard at 8 AM. For many hours, the prospective patients waited to be examined in the courtyard, and then, if accepted surgery would start that afternoon. In short a long day for the patients.
After my colleague, Bidya Pant, MD, completed the sixty-four cataract/implant surgeries, I was walking up to Dadeldhura at dinner time when I saw this “freshly operated on the patient” walking alone.
At one point, she was having trouble with traction on a steep part of the dirt path, and I was able to lend her my arm for support. I continued ahead and took some pictures of her ascent.
The last picture is of the view from the city of Dadeldhura down to the flat circular schoolyard where she had spent the day since 8 AM.
I have no idea where she started or the end of her trek. She left home sometime early that morning, presumably by herself, having yet to learn whether she would be a candidate for surgery.
Here she was late in the day, climbing an arduous path aftecataract surgery and wearing a patch on one eye on this uneven trail.
One can only guess what went through her mind as she wended her way home. The unpatched eye likely had a dense cataract; the trek was arduous enough with two good eyes.
In addition, her family had no idea of what was happening to her; cell phones were not present there at that time.
I am continuously impressed with the dedication to regaining vision amidst the tremendous uncertainties about the process.
