When a Simple Scratch Leads to a Serious Situation
What should have been a normal school day for Carly, then a senior at Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Burlington County, New Jersey, turned into a scary and sight-compromising experience in the blink of an eye.
After rubbing her itchy eyes one morning, Carly accidentally scratched her cornea. That night, Carly’s eye ulcerated—the scratch became an open sore on her cornea. “At that point I couldn’t see,” she recalls. “It was a very sudden change that was very scary and very painful.”
After exploring several options, including corrective lenses, Carly and her doctor decided her best option was to receive a cornea transplant. “One day after surgery I went in to get the patch removed and check my vision,” Carly recalls. “It was so much clearer than before that I started crying.”
Now a freshman at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Carly majors in International Relations. She supports Lions Eye Bank of Delaware Valley at different functions and is so grateful to her donor’s family. “I am just really honored that they would think of me like that.”