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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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