Help Dawn restore her vision

 Dawn has been accepted into a clinical research study called SCOTS (Stem Cell Ophthalmology Treatment Study). The cost of this procedure is 19,600 dollars, all of which is not covered by insurance. We will also need to cover the expense of the trip to Fort Lauderdale, including hotel, food,travel, etc. 

 In an hourlong procedure, doctors extract bone marrow from a patient’s hip, harvest the stem cells and inject them into one or both of the patient’s eyes. The hope is that the cells grow into specialized cells that regenerate or repair damaged eye tissue.

While this is NOT a cure and there are no guarantees, there have been some significant improvement for many people. 

If you would like more info regarding the study, youcan click on the link below.

www.clinicaltrials.gov

At the age of 13, Dawn struggled to see the blackboard from the last row in her classroom.  When she moved her seat up, her teacher questioned her and sent her to the school nurse.  After failing the eye test, the nurse sent her home with a letter to her parents to please follow up with an opthamologist.  The doctor told her parents that she was “faking it”, but gave her a pair of glasses to wear anyway.  Dawn continued to trip off curbs, walk into walls and have night blindness.  She did not get diagnosed until she was 26 years old in 1995.  By that time, she was told that she had a rare eye disease called cone-rod dystrophy, a degenerative disease of the retina.   Dawn was legally blind when this diagnosis was given.  She was given no help, no hope for a future.  Feeling like she was just handed a death sentence, she thought her life was over.  But it was just beginning.  The next day, she met her husband, Joey, and they will be celebrating 20 years of marriage this coming June.

 

Because of this diagnosis, Joe and Dawn decided to have their family rather quickly due to the fact that she wanted to see her babies’ faces. She is happy to report that she was, indeed, able to see both of her daughters’ faces.  Emily was born in ’96 and Joyce was born in ’98. In 2005, Dawn had cataract surgeries that improved her vision to 20/80 from 20/400.  For the first time in years, Dawn was able to distinguish between a burgundy car and a hunter green one.  She was able to see her children rolling their eyes at her as she asked them to do something.  She was able to see the mountains on her family’s trip to Colorado in 2006.  After falling in love with Colorado, her family moved there

 

Her vision spiraled out of control after only living in Colorado for 5 months.  This is due to the fact that her condition is a lack of oxygen to the retinas.  In January of 2007, she applied for her first guide dog from The Seeing Eye.  Dawn is now down to motion vision and has not seen faces in years.   She is now on a waiting list for guide dog number 5 from Guide Dogs for the Blind, where she is their Outreach Alumni Representative for the State of Colorado.