OKOTOKS, Alta — The Okotoks Lions Club has stepped up to help a young woman in the Philippines regain her lost eyesight.
The local service club, at the urging of member Bill Stell, has pledged up to $1,500 to cover the cost of cataract surgery for Theresa, a 29-year-old who was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa when she was a teenager.
A vision scientist who recently retired from the University of Calgary, Stell learned of Theresa’s plight six years ago through a Facebook group dedicated to the progressive retinal degenerative disease, eventually paying for her to see a specialist.
With one eye virtually blind and a cataract impairing the other, the 29-year-old now requires surgery to preserve what vision she has left, which prompted Stell to approach his fellow Lions to see if the club would be willing to bear that cost.
“This is giving her life. This is going to really improve her quality of life,” he said of the young woman who makes a meagre living as an artist.
Theresa was scheduled to make the two-hour trek to see the surgeon next week and, if all goes well, schedule a date for the operation. Stell said the cataract surgery and lens implant will prevent further deterioration of sight in her stronger eye and provide improved vision for years to come but added it’s difficult to say how long that improvement will last.
Living in an impoverished area in the central part of the country with her single mother and five siblings, Stell said Theresa and her family had no way of coming up with the money to cover the surgery.
“The cost of the surgery, the $1,500, that’s a huge amount of money over there,” he said.
Stell said Lions International has a long history of supporting vision initiatives, from collecting glasses to funding guide dog training, so he’s heartened the 20-plus members of the local club are beginning to embrace that facet of service. He said he looks forward to more efforts in that area, including potentially helping people closer to home.
He’s also hoping the club’s membership will grow so it can take on even more projects.
