Long Way Home

Today was our last day in clinic. We have a free day Friday and then start our journey home Saturday. It is somewhat bittersweet to have to pack up the clinic. In one way we are all excited to be home and see our friends and family. In another way, we are sad we are unable to continue to see the new friends on the team and the wonderful people we have met here.

It was a great day as far as clinic goes. We were supposed to wrap up around 2 and ended up going until almost 4. The we had a chance to thank the local students, Lions and the army for their generosity and hard work. Everyone that helpedus had a chance to pick out a pair of sunglasses and to pick a donated item from the our homes. It was a great time and I wish we could do more.

I really don´t have any amazing stories right now and I am having issues with posting images. I will try to get more on the blog as soon as possible, but I am not sure what I will be able to do. Access has been limited, so I am sorry for that. I will add more photos when I get home if I can´t do it before.

We have a dinner with the Lions Club this evening that should be pretty great. Then many of us are going to see the local water spouts that are about 2 hours south of here. They are said to be amazing and so far no one has misled us about these things.

I know that many of the volunteers are reading this blog and I want to take a moment to thank them for all of their hard work and huge hearts. You have made us all feel so welcome and been so gracious. We all appreciate the hours and effort you have given to this clinic and the love you have shown to us.

To our family and friends back home... We miss you and can´t wait to see you. To the our family a LUX... thanks for making this possible. Your care and support have made it possible for us to be here while you have been back home. We can´t wait to see you all and share the stories of this amazing experience.

Thanks for reading.

Muu Muu Coup!

So we had our live auction last night. As the fundraising chair, I was able to serve as the auctioneer (a great honor) and had the talents of Anna to serve as the Vanna White of the mission. She strutted her stuff for the traditional items, while I played the channelled Howie Mandell and asked for bids. Anyway, we were able to raise more than $2000 for GOS, but there is much more. I will need to share the pictures, but I will try to tell the story.

One of our teammates (Big Michael as we are calling him) has this habit of wearing a wonderful Muu Muu. It is bright orange and he is quite tall. It makes for a striking combination! Even pictures do not do it justice.

Anyway, his birthday was the other night (he owes me the poem he wrote to post on here!) and he wore this dress. It was one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time as towered over the room in this bright orange dress. He looked about two feet taller that the ladies waiting tables.

He decided to auction off the opportunity to make someone wear the Muu Muu at clinic for a day. Well a mission coup (the Muu Muu Coup) was quickly organized and much money was raised to make Janet, our mission leader, wear the dress. Ahhhhh, but it is not that simple. We are a devious bunch and Michael is quite funny. He and several others (Sheila led the charge) and hatched plan to hide the intent until late in the bidding.

So after the ¨ususal¨ items were acutioned, Michael began to tell a story, I can´t even begin to tell the story the way he told it, but needless to say, it involved buying the 1956 Western Regional Dance Champion´s dress on consignment, wearing to to an LA bar dearing Gay Pride Week(?... I was laughing to hard to be able to catch that part) and entering a bar where he was accosted by a raging Queen that said ¨Nice Dress, where´d ya get it!¨

Michael responded immediately, ¨I will have you know that there is only one Western Regional Dance champion of 1956, and I am wearing her dress,¨ or something to that effect, I told you I couldn´t relay the story. Imagine playing the telephone game, but with 30 drunk, tired maniacs that are laughing until they cry.

Well, needless to say (though I will), the bidding began with Michael taking over the auction. After all, who could follow that story? After several bids came through the bidding was over $400. A surprise came when an annonymous bidder called in a bid of over $500! Well, a shocked crowd was unable to respond before the bidding ended. The ¨anonymous¨ bidder chose to have Janet wear the Muu Muu and she was, of course deeply honored and excited.


A quick thing lass from Hawaii, Dana, proposed that we raise funds to provide the honor to a second individual. A rousing applause was heard as everyone agreed. Everyone except Eric Anderson, who may have had a sneaking suspicion that he would be the one selected to wear the Muu Muu. After a quick vote, he was correct and did indeed for all you back at home, wear the Muu Muu. It showed off his legs smashingly as our British contingent, Becky, would say.

Well, that is all I have for now... I will leave you to wait for pictures of Eric, Janet and Michael in the Muu Muu.

Thanks for reading!

Don´t Stop Believing

We had another great experience today. At clinic we saw more than 3200 patients and it seemed like only 2000. We had so many great experiences that have made the team come together even more than we could have thought. There is not a single person on the team that I am not proud to call my friend and I believe that we all feel the same way.

Today I spent the day in IMS, a station I have been in before. I think many of us returned to places we had been and are now comfortable. We all are getting the hang of it and in many ways are sad to see the end is near. We all pressed hard to day and kept the faith after our wishes from home. They powered us through the exhaustion, both mental and physical and made it possible to deliver the highest single day of the clinic. We have only a half day left and it has been getting harder and harder to find great matches for the patient´s Rx, but we all wish we could help every single person, just like we do back home.

I have a few stories today. One is from my roommate and friend Dr Dave Oebkr. Today he brought a pair of glasses from his home store that was a pretty significant Rx (plus tens). He asked the folks in IMS if they found a match to get him and he would like to be the one to dispense that glasses. A little time passed by and he was called to head up to the dispensing area and fit the glasses for the patient. As the name was called a few people wispered, Oh my gosh, he has no arms! The patient had been in an electrical accident and had lost both of his arms. The man was very excited to get glasses and came boucing up. As Dave sat him down and went to fit the glasses, he realized the man also had no right ear. It had been lost to the accident as well. Dave partnered with several team members (Eric Anderson and a few others) and was able to find a glasses strap to hold the on the man´s head. He was so greatful and the Rx matched almost perfectly. Dave was almost overwhelmed! The man had so much joy in his heart after so much difficulty, he was truly an inspiration.

A second story actually comes from me. The other day, I was working on making glasses with Shawn Deckert, my fellow Target Team Member (he is amazing, by the way) and Eric Anderson (I feel a Target moment coming on) came to me and asked if I could help with a patient. He had Auto-Refracted a woman and her mother. The woman was a MINUS 25! Imagine the world through those eyes. Her mother was a minus 6 and both had no glasses at all. I can´t imagine life in that manner. Well, we worked hard to find a good match and found an almost perfect one for the mother. She was extremely happy and gave me a big hug. For the daughter, 35 years old mind you, we were only able to find a minus 10. Hoping for the best and explaining this was not a perfect match, I put the glasses on her face. I knew immediately it was not what we were hoping for. She shook her head and said ¨No.¨ Our translator told us that she could only make out shapes and light and that it was just very cloudy. After a long talk, we realized this was probably the best we could do. With a very heavy heart, I walked her up the stairs, talking the whole way through the translator. The women told me they were both kindergarten teachers (My sister Meredith taught kindergarten) and that they loved their work and the kids. I knew that it must be next to impossible to work the kids and not be able to see them. Once I walked them out, Eric approached me. He saw how much I had been moved (believe me, it showed) and asked me if I would be willing to sponsor the woman. Very excitedly, I said yes and asked what I needed to do, thinking I would pay $400 or so and get her glasses made. Instead Eric told me Target would donate the money and I would just need to coordinate the process. Shawn Deckert, Kim Wentzel, Meera Dua, Sherrie Henderson and others, I probably don´t even know are working to make this happen and we received an email today, saying the glasses should be ready and on my desk when I get back on the 3rd! It just shows how far the spirit of giving can reach and why I love Luxottica and Target Optical. Thank you to everyone involved and thank you to Eric for asking me to help.

Wow, that was a long and emotional post. With that I will wrap things up other than to say that we all love the folks back home and can´t wait to share the joy we have experience here in Calama. Today one of the volunteers said, ¨Nothing is impossible. We are Chilean and we will make it so. Just believe you can.¨ That is the spirit of the Gift of Sight, the people we are helping and the amazing Team we are a part of.

Thanks for reading.

Candid Camera!

Tonight we received care packages from friends, family, and co-workers. We want you all to know how much it means to get a piece of home here in Calama. We are all very tired and emotionally spent and to get this is such a blessing. It has lifted our spirits and we are so looking forward to driving this clinic home and helping as many people as possible!

I would like to personally say how much it means to me to have the support of my friends and family. You are all great and your support has made this possible. I love you all and can't wait to see you. I am sure everyone here feels the same way about their loved ones so from all of us here, we miss you all and love you!

To all that have not seen there familes for a looooong time, here are some pics from the past few days. Enjoy.

Memories

Today we wanted to share an amazing experience from clinic. One of the docs, Alan Levy from NY, has lost his father in the past year. He has been wearing his father´s flanel shirt to honor his memory. His father believed strongly in the importance of giving back, so he felt that this mission was the perfect place to ¨give the shirt off his back.¨

Alan has been working the Penthouse clinic which is the area above the main floor of the clinic for patients that are unable to climb the stairs or have other issues that would keep them from going through the lines. He encountered a woman with a rather severe Rx that had no legs. He happened to have in his pocket one of his patient´s glasses. The patient had heard of his mission work and wanted to make sure someone was able to use them.

As he gave her the glasses he became very emotional. The woman was extremely greatful and was trying to console him as he started to break down. He then looked at her husband and realized that this was THE opportunity to truly honor his father and gave him the shirt. Through an interpreter, he shared the story of his father and what this meant to him. The man was very appreciative and several patients came to console him. It was very moving.

Several hours later, the man returned with a gift of fruit. An experience that can´t happen anywhere else.

Thanks for reading and we´ll try to post more later.

Open Your Hearts and Your Wallets

Hello everyone.

Just a quick update after our silent auction. We were able to raise $1787 tonight and almost everyone came away with a memory to bring home. For those that don´t know, each mission has a silent auction where team members bring items from home to auction off during the mission. In addition, people purchase items in country that have special meaning to the team. Some amazing things were included tonight such as custom crafted jewelry, sunglasses, shirts and hats.

We will have a live auction tomorrow to really bring it home. This team is so generous and so giving, it is amazing. There are some special items for the live auction including an autographed flag.

We are having some issues with getting photos uploaded, but we will make sure to get as many as possible on in the morning.

I want to thank my friend Johanna for updating the blog tonight. She did a great job while I was coordinating the silent auction.

SUDDENLY I SEE

After two days off the clinic it was fairly hard for everyone to get up and be at the bus at 07:15. Barb was slightly late did get to wear the cheerleading uniform the whole day and do a cheer for us during morning brief. This got everyone in a good mood and the day started off well.

Throughout the day we were able to help 2236 patients. We had a lot of exciting and moving moments when we were able to help patients that had not seen for a long time or had never had glasses. The three most moving stories will follow.

A 42-yr old woman came to the prescription station and presented Ron with a -23 and being very nearsighted. The woman had never had glasses before and literally could see anything clearly no further away than 2 inches from her nose. Ron was able to find her a pair of glasses with the help of Cynthia that were -12, approximately half of the prescription she needed. The moment we put the glasses on her, she was excited how clearly she could see although we were not even able to give her a perfect match. At that point Alan walked up to see what the excitement was about and suggested to try and piggy-back a second pair of glasses to attempt to give her an even better result. Ron went to IMS to find a smaller pair that was able to be fitted onto the first pair and managed to make the prescribed glasses up to -20. This almost gave the woman perfect sight and her amazement was apparent. As this moved us a lot this story is not over yet.

Ron offered to make her the perfect glasses when he gets back to his office in Detroit, MI and send them to her, so she will be able to see with one pair of glasses in the very near futures. We truly gave her the gift of sight.

Another moving story we came across was a mother that had a -16. We managed to get a pair of glasses that were -10.Although her little son did not have a sheet and was not supposed to be checked, Michael Siebert proposed to check him as well. He was checked although he did not have myopia but he had 4 diopters of stigmatism and we made sure he received glasses. The woman also had a 3 months old daughter, Michael explained to her how important it was to check the daughter in, as she would probably face difficulties in sight as well when she grew older.

We are seeing a lot of high cylinders, which are due to genetic reasons and not as common in first world countries; making it quite difficult for us at this point of the clinic to find perfect matches for everyone. Nevertheless everyone is trying really hard to find a very close match and a pair of glasses that matches age and gender.

The last story we have for today which really moved those in dispensing was of two little boys. One got a big pair of old glasses and the other pair was pink. Dana (our birthday-kid of today as we keep on celebrating birthdays throughout our trip..) did not want to supply the boys with what was given to her. She went to get Chabellas for one of them. She told the little boy she was putting them onto, that they were specially made for him. The boy started crying because he was so moved. Dana however realized these glasses were not intended for the boy that got them and had to call him back. Moved by how he reacted she went down to Shawn to get another pair of Chabellas for him as well. The outcome was more than worth it.

Tonight is silent auction and everyone is now putting in their items to fundraise money for the gift of sight foundation. Trying to rise the price people walk around praising their items to everyone else.
We will of course try to raise more money than previous missions all depending upon generosity, probably creativity of items that can be bid upon and the supports of you guys out there who can support us as well ....online!! ( pls. see website www.givethegiftofsight.com and look for team chile 2008 team leader tim mohrhaus - thanks for supporting us in advance!)

Finishing tonight we want to wish Dana a great birthday and all that she wishes for to come true. She has been so cheerful and supportive to everyone in the team, volunteers and of course to the patients. Stay the way you are "cow-girl".