Humbling moments....

As I sit home late in the evening after a day of work back in our overdeveloped world, I think and try to process the events that took place and the experiences we had. One event has stayed in my mind more than others.

It was another day at the clinic. Omar, the volunteer who had pretty much taken charge of putting dilating drops in every patients, came to ask me to check the pupils of patients who had cataract operation before he places the drops in their eyes. After inspecting all those patients, I gave Omar the 'ok' to drop them.

Then one lady far on the other side of the crowd raised her hand and I go over. She asked if we would need to place drops in her son's eyes since he couldn't see. I looked at her son's eyes and realized that he was blind. One eye had a central corneal opacity that precluded any vision and the other eye had what seemed to be a previous trauma internally within the eye. I asked how long has it been since he couldn't see. He answered, " since birth." I said to the mother, "Lo siento, but there is no need to place any drops in his eyes. All he needs will be a pair of sunglasses to shield him from the sunlight. As I was writing on his exam sheet- no drops nor examination are needed, all he needs is a pair of sunglasses, I heard that son asked his mother to ask me if there is any operation we can do to improve his vision. I turned to the son and then to the mother, addressing both at the same time, trying to explain to them that because he never had sights with his eyes since birth, he hasn't developed any visual capability in the brain, and therefore no surgery now can provide him with vision. In the middle of this exchange, my emotion took over and I just started crying uncontrollably, and yet at the same time, I was trying to control my emotion. Imagine how awkward I felt. After I had regain my composure, the son simply said, thank you. The mother thanked me multiple time for my explaination. I bid my farewell and went back to my station on the other side of the stadium. For a the rest of the day, I felt helpless, unable to resolve his visual needs with a pair of 'quick pick' or a pair of Chabella glasses.

As the week proceeds, I am to encounter this youngman again, when we went to the Melvin Jones School for special children. There he was, in his element together with his fellow blind classmates. He sported a smile on his face always. I saw no sign of weakness of handicap. He seemed happy in his own world. I felt humbled. Here is a youngman who has never seen and will never see the world as we know it, yet, he is perfectly happy and content. We who have so much more often complained the most about our lives. That is a lession in humility that will stay with me forever.

Dr. AlbertO

well it has been an amazing 2 weeks its hard to believe that time can go by that fast. in 8 days of clinic we saw over 16000 people. pretty amazing when you think of it. we smoothed out our bumps from the first few days, tweaked some of the clinic setup and the working hours during the days got shorter, and we got more efficient at providing the best patient care we could. all of the recommendations that the team members suggested improved our working enviroment. there are so many stories that come from these clinics some that i have posted previousely,but some that were not posted. we had sickness among the team members ranging from cold and viral infections to one of our team having a chair come out from under her and splitting her head open for 7 stitches. i hope the pumpkin is feeling better lisa:-).
we helped people that may never have an opportunity to get glasses again see for the very first time. the reactions ranged from pure excitement to feelings of being overwhelmed at what they were missing. not only the visual aspect of these people were addressed but health issues relating to the patients were discovered and addressed as well. a young boy with a melinoma on his eye was found and hopefully be corrected so that eye will not have to be removed. we have referred other patients to the lions club that will need for corrective surgery as well. i mentioned previousely how a lady wanted to spend her last few coins on her free glasses. well there were other stories as well of people giving back there glasses because they felt someone else would benefit from them more. a simple comment on how pretty a pair of earrings were that a patient was wearing resulted in that person giving the earrings to one of our team, because they wanted to give something back to the people that were doing so much for her people. it breaks your heart to see what people have to survive with when we have so much. but you will not find happier people.
our partners the lions were absolutely incredible to work with. so much caring on the part of the members to want to help their people and to make our stay a memory we will always treasure. one example one night was, as we were about to leave the clinic the doors were locked to the clinic and we were not allowed to wander out. they made sure the whole team gathered and when the doors were finally opened for us a band was on top of a bus that started to play for us. well i don't have to say what a joy it was for us to have this happen. it rejuvinated us at the end of a long day and dancing broke out followed by the team mounting the bus and being paraded through town all the way back to our hotel. it was awesome. they truly lived up to their motto"we serve"

its amazing what a group of people for the most part that have never met before can accomplish as our team did. there were language barriers that had to be overcome between our international members, and our english speaking team. i was sitting alone one night away from the other team and i was just watching the team. i noticed the italian team members sitting at a table with some of the american team . there was no interpretor at the table, but the laughter that was coming from that table was incredible. you would never had known that this group could not really communicate verbally. it was amazing. the bonds that were formed will become life long friendships. most of the postings have been done by one person but i'm sure there will be other stories posted in future dates, by the other team members along with pictures from their personal memories of our adventure. and it was an adventure of a life time.
and one last time i ask that you contribute to onesight whether it be recycling glasses or small but they don't have to be small :-)cash contributions to help us help the world to see.
thankyou..Team Ecuador

ok we're back ,and what a time that last couple of days have been. we've done over 12000 people so far and our stocks are quickly running low. already we are depleted in some of the powers that are needed and we have to adapt the prescriptions to what we have available. we don't want to have any of the recipients leave without any kind of help but there are occaisions where all we can offer the people are non prescription sunglasses. we are very sad that we have to disappoint some but unfortunately those are the realities.

i have mentioned that we are truly an international team and the rest of this post is going to be completed by our italian members. so enjoy unfortunately its going to be in italian. oh by the way i haven't mentioned the mvp of the day. friday it was one of our Dr.s, albert lee does an incredible job and is tireless in his efforts. today it was Dr teresa carlson. who's value working behind our computers helping adapting the prescriptions as necessary was , well we couldn't have done it without her. so now on to the italians!!!

Ciao!!!
Ci siamo anche noi: Ailsa, Marica, Marisa e la francesina Christine.
Ci siamo trovate a Madrid come se fossimo amiche da sempre (gli americani sono rimasti stupiti dalla nostra combricola).
Siamo un gruppo fenomenale!!! Stiamo lavorando tutti molto bene e siamo stiamo insegnando anche a loro qlc Pensiamo di restare qui, ma purtroppo dobbiamo tornare a lavorare perche' senza di noi la Luxottica non va avanti!!!!
La sveglia suona alle 5.30 ogni mattina, facciamo le giornate molto lunghe; pero' le persone che riusciamo ad accontentare ci riscaldano il cuore. (non tutte........ certe ci aspettano all'uscita per chiedere di cambiare l'occhiale perche' e' MOLTO GRANDE!)
La sfiga dell'Italia ci perseguita, dovevamo andare a vedere le balene ma il tempo era brutto. In compenso abbiamo visto il paese con le persone molto calienti. Vogliamo ringraziare tutti gli amici che ci seguono sul blog............CONTINUATE!!!
Abbiamo fatto la giornata hawaiana e come il solito, la cabeza loca (Marica) si e' divertita a ballare sulla sedia con fiori e gonna.......... forse seguiranno le foto.

man you cannot believe how dissappointed i am at not being able to blog on this clinic. it has been very tough with internet connections. but i am finally back. its sunday and our day off and we have had an incredible week. in four days of clinic we have had over 7800 people come through our doors. AWESOME!!! we finally have a great rythm going now and everything is running so smooth. . you'll see we changed our profile pic and hopefully i can collect some team member pics and put them up so you can see who we are helping. the lions here are outstanding.. and i mean absolutely incredible.
Now lets get to some stories. we had 2 ladies in on thursday. 1 was 74 years old her name was was maria esperanza and i will never forget her. she was just magical. she has not been able to see beyond her nose since she was a child. her prescription was -14.00. i had brought some glasses with me from our store back in canada that we had recycled. every clinic that we do, the extreme prescriptions are always the hardest to find, and team members always bring what they can packed in their suitcases. I happened to have exactly what maria needed in my bags. we sat her down and put the glasses on her and you wouldn't believe how her facial expression changed. her eyes lit up, her face turned into a huge grin, and her first words were "you're beautiful." she reached out and gave me a huge hug. that is what makes all the travel and the endless days worth while. maria was incredible. the aussie video team was there and wanted to interview her. they took her outside and she started dancing, the other people in the line started clapping and there was a little party happening.
in her interview she told them that she wanted to cook. a very simple everyday process that we take for granted. she invited them back to her home the next day and she was going to prepare lunch for them. upon their return the next day, she had made a feast for them entertained them and had a small gift for me. a half an oyster shell that her husband had cleaned up. he jokingly commented that they had 9 children, he was a fisherman and fished oysters in his younger years and as we all know oysters are an aphrodesiac, and thats where his 9 children came from. its funny when you hear the joke, but how did she manage a home with 9 children when she couldn't see???
the second story i will tell you happened with one of our team members debbie newman who is a paralegal that works for us in cincinnati. she was all prepared to hand an older woman back her paper work so that she could get her glasses, and them woman pulled out 7 cents out of her pocket and told deb it was her last 7 cents and she wanted to pay for her new glasses. deb informed her that the glasses were free. but the woman insisted that she should pay for her new glasses. You could see tears rolling down debs cheeks as she had to force this woman to keep her money. the people of ecuador are so warm and caring i don't think i could find people that i want to help more.
one thing that i ask is please tell your friends and associates donate glasses and recycle the glasses that come to your stores. they are desparately needed.
1 final note we had a team member leave us this morning so that she could return to her studies back in illinois. she could only come for the first week of our clinic and in order for her to make that 1 week she had to compress 2weeks woth of studies into 1 and will have to work extra hard on her return. karen you made such an impression on us in your time here that your smile and your work ethic will be missed, and thankyou for coming into our family... but we're still gonna go one day. take care buddy. and i am out of here. i still have inventories to prepare for next weeks clinic. see ya'll later

wow what a rush

well one thing i learned from honduras you find the time when you can. sorry about no day 1, but what a rush it has been the last 2 days i'll try to cover as much as i can before it becomes to much of a blur one day running into the next.
i came up with an idea this morning at breakfast that i think is something that is fun and important to all of us that are here. we instituted the MVP of the day. The trophy is a garish tie that my wife found emblazened with a maple leaf and Canada written all over it. each day the team will nominate by vote and indiviual whose work was outstanding and well worth the recognition that an ugly tie can bring. todays recipient was one of our oustanding Drs mike mendoza through whose diligence uncovered what is potentially a life threatening ailment in a 15 year old girl called marfens syndrome. sorry if i spelt that wrong. what it involves is a connective tissue disorder that affects the joints, and cardiovascular system. the end result can be the aorta rupturing leading to possible to death. i think you'll agree the award was well deserved. congratulations mike!!!
Now what has happened over the last 2 days?? well it is amazing to watch the new team members embark on something that they will hold near and dear for the rest of there lives. their enthusiasm and eagerness to help everyone they can. over the last 2 days we have seen 3500 people. You can see the exhaustion on their faces, but you can see the joy as well. our days start at 6 am and end shortly after 8 at night. we have had so many enjoyable memories in the first 2 days of clinic. For instance the 74 year old woman who has not been able to see beyond her nose for most of her life all of a sudden being able to see her children , her grand children and i expect her great grand children. her prescription -15d. absolutely incredble.
writng this now, we have just finished supper its 10:30, and alot of the team are already drifting off to bed. they deserve the sleep because they know that at 6 am it starts all over again. i'm thinking of doing the same thing. so i am going to end off here, and maybe go tuck myself in to...naaa i'm going to enjoy the comraderie of my friends. night all sleep tight

i apologise for the length of time it has taken for actually getting this started. i had the usual "due to technical difficulties we are unable to bring you our regularly scheduled program" problems down here. so if you will indulge me a bit. take yourself back a couple of days. Its 12:15 am sep 6th. myself our clinic dirctor leona and our technical director reuben have been in ecuador for 3 days. in that time we have planned the final details of our upcoming clinic. Now what is that you ask?? Well we have met our partners here in Selinas the lions club members. Who have worked diligently to ensure a successful clinic by finding the people that will be the recipients of our efforts to give the gift of sight. 15,000 people will pass through the doors of our clinic in 8 days. We have scouted out our clinic, drawn up plans on how the flow will go to maximize effieciency. When you are dealing with about 2,000 people a day you have to be prepared. Plans for where the different stations will be from registration, all the way through to the dispensing of glasses. Where the inventory will be positioned. Where and how many vulunteers and translators will be placed. Meetings with local health officials took place in that time as well.

Right now it is the calm before the storm. Already our team members have started to travel to Miami, where they will gather enmass to begin the journey. First to Guayaquil then on to Salinas. Our team is coming from Canada, Italy, France, and the United States. There is a film crew coming from Australia to film a documentary.

This is my first time in a leadership role and so far the experience has been incredile. I am so looking forward to the rest of my time here because i get to renew old aquaintances with some very special people. And to make new friends as well, again with some very special people. In all there are 32 team members who will be here whose only purpose is to help those who need it....the adventure begins