Blind
Love
In my work as a physician I have seen many remarkable stories of love. It could be the love of a mother for her autistic child or the love of a son or daughter for their elderly and disabled parent. However, the story that I most often recall is the tender and caring love between one particular couple. This is their story.
Some
years ago, I saw a new patient in my clinic. He was in his late fifties when I
first saw him. He
lived in a nursing home. He had been born with a defect in his eyes and did not
have good vision. He ended up growing up in a
nursing home. He did have some limited vision and could walk around on his own.
What struck me most about him was his very cheerful nature. His personality was
such that I took an instant liking to him.
We
got along very well together. He asked me if I would be willing to take on his
wife as a patient.
I was surprised. You are married I asked? Yes, he told me. His wife had also
lived in the nursing
home since she was a baby. She is blind too he told me. I told him I would be
very happy to
take care of his wife.
At
his next visit, the nursing home brought his wife with him. She was in her
sixties and had developed
blindness as a baby. Her family then left her to be brought up in the nursing home.
She
had lived there all her life. She married my patient a few years ago after he
moved to her nursing
home from another facility.
How
did you become blind I asked? She told me that she had been born with jaundice.
Babies with
jaundice are often treated with bright lights which help in reducing the
jaundice. Unfortunately,
in the 1940’s, it was not known that a baby’s delicate eyes can be damaged by
the bright
lights if not protected. The bright lights damaged the retina of her eyes, and
she became blind.
Today, if a jaundiced baby has to be put under bright lights, then their eyes
are carefully covered
with padding to protect them from the lights.
She
had a lot of other medical problems. She often had difficulty sitting in my
office because of severe
back pain. I would then see her husband taking care of her and trying to get
her to be more
comfortable. He took amazing care of her. He helped her with everything. I can
still see him
helping her walk to the bathroom even though he himself had limited vision.
Every time she cried in pain, he would hold her hands and would do his best to
comfort her. Here was a blind man completely devoted to taking care of his
blind wife. I never saw him look frustrated or upset.
A few months after they
became my patients, the wife fell ill and died. When my patient came back to
see me, I braced for him being sad and depressed or even angry at the loss of
his beloved wife. However, I was surprised. He came in smiling.
She is in a better
place, he told me. She is no longer in pain and he said that he looked forward
to meeting her again in heaven. He also told me that he could no longer bear to
live in the same nursing home with the memories of his wife. He was moving to
another nursing home in another town. He would be getting another doctor and wanted
to say good bye to me.
I never saw him again,
but he is the most remarkable example of selfless love that I have ever seen. I
hope that he is doing well today.
A jaundiced baby with protective eye padding today.
