[il-talk] The following article shows why our work in the NFB is soimportant.

Wed Feb 1 01:05:40 UTC 2012

This article is so pathetic. Ewwwww

i live each day one day at a time 

-----Original Message-----
From: "Patti Gregory-Chang" <pattichang at att.net>
Sender: il-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:57:43 
To: Jemal Powell<derek2872 at yahoo.com>; NFB of Illinois Mailing List<il-talk at nfbnet.org>
Reply-To: NFB of Illinois Mailing List <il-talk at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [il-talk] The following article shows why our work in the NFB
	is soimportant.

I saw this and was really displeased with the media take on the story.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jemal Powell" <derek2872 at yahoo.com>
To: <Il-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 6:44 PM
Subject: [il-talk] The following article shows why our work in the NFB is 
soimportant.

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: NFB-NEWSLINE Online <nfbnewsline at nfb.org>
To: Jemal Powell <derek2872 at yahoo.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2012 7:01 PM
Subject: Article from Chicago Tribune News 2012 01 22

An unexpected torch in the dark \ Nearby friends brighten life of woman 
whose world was dimmed by vision woes. By Vikki Ortiz Healy, Tribune 
reporter. Last month, in a third-floor unit of an unremarkable beige brick 
apartment building in Schiller Park, Janice Gurvey was going blind. . 
Doctors had earlier warned her that cataracts would gradually take her 
eyesight, but the fog moved in quickly. Within weeks, the woman, in her 
mid-40s, had to stop cooking and driving. Within two months, she fell in the 
shower, unable to pick herself up. That was when her neighbors revealed 
themselves as the kind of people few, perhaps, are lucky to experience. The 
family next door took out her garbage and took Gurvey hot meals. A friend a 
short drive away visited daily to do laundry and feed her cats. Another down 
the street drove her to doctors appointments and called every hospital and 
eye center in Chicago, desperately searching for somebody who could help. I 
don't know
 what usually happens to someone who has no money and no insurance and can't 
see and has no family in the area," said Dr. Brian Proctor, an 
ophthalmologist at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, who said he'd never seen 
anyone so young lose vision so quickly. Society, I think, would've just put 
her in the nursing home to get her out of the way," Proctor said. But they 
didn't. Her neighbors took care of her. Gurvey and officials at the Melrose 
Park hospital hope the story will spread a little warmth during the cold 
days of winter. There's not enough words in this world to make up for what 
they did," she said. In the last few months of 2011, Gurvey felt her life 
sink deeper and deeper into a hole. Once a vibrant cashier at a grocery 
store, she was let go when her failing eyesight led to mistakes reading 
customers' coupons, she said. Her longtime live-in boyfriend, who covered 
the bills, offered to pay for surgery to repair her vision. But in October, 
a stroke left
 him unable to move his left side. He, too, had to stop working and moved 
into a nursing home for rehabilitation. Gurvey was left alone in their 
one-bedroom unit, where her eyesight deteriorated rapidly. She began 
counting the stairs in the building -- 13 for the first flight, 12 for the 
next -- to keep from falling. She ate lunch-meat sandwiches for every meal 
because she no longer could see the dials on the stove. Unless people were 6 
inches from her face, she couldn't see their expressions, Gurvey said. It's 
the worst feeling," she said. For 45 years, you're so used to seeing stuff. 
I would sit here and I could have all the lights on, but it would be like 
pitch black. Cataracts are a common condition in which the lens of the eye 
becomes cloudy, leading to loss of vision that typically worsens with age, 
Proctor said. Although most cataracts begin about age 60, they can happen 
sooner, said Proctor, who has been in practice for 17 years. Most people 
have
 the condition repaired with routine surgery, in which the damaged lens is 
replaced with an artificial one. Proctor does 10 to 15 surgeries a week. 
Doctors detected early signs of cataracts in Gurvey's eyes in October 2010, 
but her condition rapidly deteriorated a year later. Stress, which reached a 
high in Gurvey's life after her boyfriend had the stroke, is known to speed 
the deterioration, Proctor said. Without a job or health insurance, Gurvey 
knew surgery that costs $3,500 an eye was not an option. She said she had 
fallen behind on rent and began having panic attacks wondering what would 
happen to her. You live by yourself and you're used to feeding the cats and 
taking a shower and going to work. And I couldn't do any of that by myself," 
she said. I eventually thought I'd have to go to a nursing home. About that 
time Agnes Zak, who lives next door, noticed Gurvey scrambling to catch her 
cat Buster when the pet escaped into the hallway. Zak's heart
 ached as she watched Gurvey grab at thin air because she couldn't see the 
pale tan animal. After Zak helped retrieve the pet, she began regularly 
dropping off hot meals such as pork and sauerkraut. She told Gurvey to leave 
her garbage bags at their doorstep so she wouldn't have to stumble to the 
garbage bin. And Zak's husband gave Gurvey rides to visit her boyfriend. I 
was raised that way, to give, to help," said Zak. I would expect someone to 
help me if I was in that situation. Similar reasons inspired James 
Staublein, of Des Plaines, who knew Gurvey through her boyfriend. Staublein 
checked on her as he drove by her apartment a few months ago. His timing was 
perfect. Gurvey had just slipped in the shower and was lying there frozen in 
fear until Staublein called on her cellphone. After Staublein let himself 
in, he vowed to visit her almost daily to feed her cats, clean her apartment 
and give her rides wherever she needed to go. As Gurvey's eye condition
 worsened, Staublein and his wife, Dianne, took her into their home so they 
could look after her around the clock. Staublein knows other people might 
not have gone to the same lengths, but he said there was no other option. 
Gurvey was in distress, he said: "We helped her out the best we could. 
Another friend, who did not want to be named for this article, made it her 
mission to find a doctor or eye center in the Chicago area that would 
perform cataract surgery at a discounted rate under a payment plan. She 
called dozens of hospitals and centers, pleading Gurvey's case until she 
reached Jeneen Santucci, the office manager at Gottlieb Eye Center, in 
Melrose Park. She knew what she was talking about," recalled Santucci. You 
could tell she'd been researching. Although Santucci wondered if the friend 
was exaggerating, she spoke with Proctor, who agreed to see Gurvey for a 
consultation on Christmas Eve. Minutes into the examination, Proctor said, 
it was clear
 that Gurvey needed immediate attention. He discounted his fee by 50 percent 
and told Santucci to ask the hospital to lower its fees. And he squeezed her 
surgery into his packed end-of-the-year schedule. It's very unusual for me 
to see someone with cataracts that are that dense," Proctor said. To let 
somebody walk around like that, I think, is cruel. She needed to be taken 
care of, and that was just the right thing to do. Proctor said his staff 
members had tears in their eyes when they saw Gurvey's spirits lift almost 
instantly. Shortly after the 15-minute procedure, the colors that jumped out 
at Gurvey from the tile floor made her heart pound, she said. On the drive 
home, she pointed out signs for hotels near O'Hare International Airport 
that she could read again. A second surgery this month restored Gurvey's 
vision in both eyes to 20/20. Back to health, she recently began working 
again two days a week as a runner at a restaurant. Gurvey's surgeries
 were paid for by contributions collected by her friend and by strangers on 
Facebook. At night, she returns to Apt. 3D in that nondescript beige brick 
building, where she is overwhelmed whenever she thinks about all the people 
who helped her stay there. And this month, she celebrated her 46th birthday 
with perfect vision. I was able to see my cake, candles and the faces of my 
friends," said Gurvey. I didn't know what to wish for as I blew out the 
candles, because I knew my wish had already been granted." ----------  
vortiz at tribune.com 2012 0009 120122 N S 0000000000 00002586. ILLUSTRATION: 
Photo(s). Photo (color): Janice Gurvey, right, 46, got a helping hand from 
neighbor Agnes Zak, center, with her daughter Dominika, 10. Zak and her 
husband cooked, cleaned and ran errands for Gurvey. Photo (color): Dr. Brian 
Proctor says of Janice Gurvey's situation: "I don't know what usually 
happens to someone who has no money and no insurance and can't see and has 
no
 family in the area. ... Her neighbors took care of her. Photo (color): 
Janice Gurvey was going blind before getting surgery for a rare form of 
cataracts. She now has 20/20 vision PHIL VELASQUEZ/TRIBUNE PHOTOS\. This 
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