I see clearly now – thanks to Valley Children’s

Reading about Carolyn Peck, co-founder of Valley Children’s Hospital, (story, Oct. 26) reminded me of the 1953 afternoon when I was 5 years old and I stopped at the dining room/kitchen threshold.

My mother stood about 15 feet away on the kitchen counter putting a glass bowl into a cupboard. She dropped it, and a second later, something made me feel like a bug had flown into my right eye. It itched.

My mother got a telephone referral to the downtown office of ophthalmologist Dr. Theodore Steinberg, and we took a taxi to his office, as she did not drive. He said to go to Valley Children’s Hospital that evening. He did not operate until midnight. I had a bandage on my eye for a couple of weeks and missed kindergarten.

I remember only one thing that Dr. Steinberg said in the follow-up visits to his office. “My training told me that when a pupil pops out of the eye that far, that I was supposed to let you go blind, but I pushed it back in to try to save the eye.”

I have read around 900 books, got a bachelor’s degree at Fresno State and a master’s degree at the University of Washington in Seattle.

This story was originally published October 27, 2017 at 3:56 PM with the headline "I see clearly now – thanks to Valley Children’s."