{"id":117,"date":"2011-03-14T03:41:49","date_gmt":"2011-03-14T03:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/eyecarecaribbean\/2011\/03\/14\/in-sickness-and-health\/"},"modified":"2011-03-14T03:41:49","modified_gmt":"2011-03-14T03:41:49","slug":"in-sickness-and-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/bulletins\/in-sickness-and-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Glaucoma Watch > In Sickness & Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"george-sylvia-blythe\"Years ago when George and Sylvia Blythe promised to be with each other in “sickness and in health”, little did they know the reality of their wedding vows.<\/span><\/p>\n

The couple, both in their 70s have lost their vision due to Glaucoma. <\/span><\/p>\n

For years George,72, fought long and hard hoping to conquer recurring eye problems.<\/span><\/p>\n

“My grandfather was blind, so was my father and now it’s my turn… it’s not easy but there is nothing else to do”. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em> <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

George who describes himself as a jack of all trades, said that in his younger years he had countless jobs, from being a mason, a baker, a gardner and participating in the farm work programme in the United States. While overseas an injury forced him to return to Jamaica.<\/span><\/p>\n

He recalls that problems with his eyes became evident shortly after he returned home.<\/span><\/p>\n

“One night, years ago, my eyes suddenly got foggy and started to run water, this had never happened. My friend who was with me said something had to be wrong . I went to the doctor who gave me a letter to see a specialist who told me it looked like Glaucoma. I went to another Doctor and when they checked it they didn’t tell me what was wrong. They gave me pills and eye drops and told me to come back every three months.<\/span><\/em>
This went on for seven years. Sometimes there were no doctors at the hospital, I had to go to private doctors and that cost a lot of money.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

One day seven doctors examined my eyes. One of them told me that no matter what happened they could not save my vision. One day the vision in my left eye went suddenly and a few years later, I went blind in the other”.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Through his ordeal, his wife, Sylvia,74, stood by his side, not knowing that she would suffer the same fate 13 years later.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I woke up one morning and when I opened my eyes, I could only see out of one. I was looking to go blind though, because people told me that I would go blind. But they didn’t tell me that I would go to bed and just wake up and couldn’t see”.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Glaucoma – “the thief of sight” robbed her of her vision. Their daughter who is now their care-giver, believes her mother’s sight could have been saved if she only listened to the Doctors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sylvia disagrees.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The Doctor said the pressure in the eye was high high, I got drops, but after they told me I had to do an operation because I had cataract and Glaucoma. After hearing that I didn’t go back – what was the use?”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

“I don’t worry about it, my husband told me what would happen. We cheer up each other.”<\/em> Sylvia said.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Years ago when George and Sylvia Blythe promised to be with each other in “sickness and in health”, little did they know the reality of their wedding vows. The couple, both in their 70s have lost their vision due to Glaucoma. For years George,72, fought long and hard hoping to conquer recurring eye problems. “My grandfather was blind, so was my father and now it’s my turn… it’s not easy but there is nothing else to do”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bulletins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyecarecaribbean.com\/site\/ecc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}