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Restorative vision operations in Cuba have changed
their lives
BY BENNY CRUZ ZAPATA
CIUDAD VICTORIA, Tamaulipas.—
José Juan Pineda knows what it’s like to have to
bear all kinds of nicknames alluding to the
strabismus he was born with; 26 years have not been
enough to get used to all the verbal abuse heaped on
him from strangers and acquaintances alike, children
and adults, and even professionals.
“Socially, it’s awful to have a
problem like mine, a childhood of ridicule, teenage
years that were terrible, and even now as a
professional, people’s jokes were ever-present –
even my fellow engineers at work would say, ‘you
have one eye mixing concrete and the other laying
bricks.’ The most recurring nickname was ‘norno’
because they would say that I had one eye in the
north and another in the northeast. When I was a
child, they always called me ‘cross-eyes.’ It’s
painful and traumatic to live like that; people
don’t understand how one is born with defects. Even
though science is well advanced, (I didn’t have)
enough money to use the advanced clinics. That is
why, now that my eyes are in their place, I never
tire of blessing the moment that the Cuban doctors
changed my entire life.”
The engineer from Ciudad Victoria
is one of 300 people from the state of Tamaulipas
who have benefited from Operation Miracle, a program
of the Cuban government and Latin American
organizations like the Workers Party here in
Tamaulipas.
“The truth is, when you’ve lived
your whole life with an eye problem and all of a
sudden, in a matter of months, it is fixed –
something you didn’t even dream of – you don’t tire
of thanking and blessing the hands of the Cuban
doctors who made that miracle possible, transforming
my life. In spite of all the efforts I made to live
a normal life, the constant abuse had my self-esteem
in the pits; that has changed now, and together with
my wife and my two children, I am completely happy.
This confirms that God exists, and manifests himself
where you least expect it.
Like the engineer, Socorro
Perales Roco, 67, testifies that “miracles do
exist.”
“I’m diabetic,” she says, “and I
was going blind, because for people like me it is
impossible to pay a private doctor for an operation,
and at the health institutions there is no way to
obtain rapid and adequate attention. I had cataracts
in my eyes for many years; only someone who had
experienced it knows what that means. In my home, I
am at God’s mercy, because even though I have five
children, they are living their own lives. I
understand that, and I try to keep myself going as
much as I can. I try to survive in any way I can; I
make tamales and sell whatever I can. Unfortunately,
in recent years, with my eye problem, my situation
was awful. Now, I thank God for having the
operation, and even though I haven’t completely
recovered, everything is going well.”
Regarding her experience in
traveling to Cuba, she says if anything surprised
her, it was the humanity of the doctors, nurses and
social workers there.
“Really, it makes me so happy
just to remember the affection and care they showed
us; for them, we were not just case numbers, we were
human beings whose lives could change if everything
came out well in the operation and the attention
they gave us. And they sure did achieve that,
because by giving me back my sight, they gave me
back a useful life, which will allow me to get up
every day and work to be able to survive.”
Juana Facundo Viuda de Flores, 65
is a similar case; she does not cease speaking
wonders about Operation Miracle.
“I have had diabetes for 24
years, and so I was losing my sight, and with that,
life itself, because blindness not only keeps us
from enjoying the beauty of life, but also from
being useful, and having to depend on others to go
out into the street or do housework, which was my
case.”
“Even though I have social security,” she adds, “not
much could be done, because with my clinical
condition, there wasn’t much possibility of
recovery. At my age, that really weighs you down —
watching the days go by, and with each passing day,
you are more vulnerable. That is the situation I was
in when they told me about the campaign Cuba was
carrying out for people like us. Today, thank God, I
can see, and with that, at my age of 65, my hopes
for a dignified life have returned.”
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