Ophthalmologist Alana Grajewski still remembers how difficult it was to watch one of her earliest patients lose her eyesight. She’d operated on toddler Lucy Arajuio to correct the glaucoma procedure the little girl had undergone in her native Central America. By the time Lucy was a teenager, the multiple procedures were taking their final toll on her eyes. Grajewski recalls in particular one visit where Lucy couldn’t see the vision chart at all—just the hand pointing toward it.
“I didn’t want to turn to face her mother, because I was devastated,” Grajewski says. “But Lucy, who had grown to know me quite well, said, ‘Don’t be sad, Dr. Grajewski. I learned to read Braille while I could see.’”
Grajewski, director of the pediatric glaucoma center at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, believes timely treatment can save the vision of today’s Lucys. This conviction, plus a generous donation from a former patient named Carlos Lyra, spurred her to create the Grajewski/Lyra Foundation for Pediatric and Infantile Glaucoma in 1998.
Glaucoma, a disorder that damages the optic nerve, often is perceived as a disease of the elderly, but Grajewski says it also affects young adults and children, including newborns. In adults, glaucoma can be treated with drops, lasers or surgery—but the 1 in 25,000 children born with the condition have to be treated surgically as soon as possible. If the surgery is performed in time, there’s a 90 to 95 percent chance the child will acquire normal vision. If not, the infant almost certainly will go blind.
The foundation began as a referral center, but now conducts research and trains physicians as well. If a child in the United States needs assistance, Grajewski can arrange for a pediatric glaucoma specialist, with American Airlines providing transportation and Ronald McDonald House a place to stay. More recently Grajewski has expanded overseas. “Currently, we have clinics in Romania, the Czech Republic and El Salvador,” she says. Surgeons work for free, and the foundation pays hospital fees.
As for Lucy, she went to college, got married and sometimes volunteers at the foundation. “People who aren’t sighted can live full lives in this country, [but] resources are often woefully inadequate elsewhere,” Grajewski says. “Having vision at some point in her life was enough to give her a step up and make a difference.”
—JENNIFER LIU, ’08
