Assist Abby Stein with her Visual Impairment

Hi, my name is Cynthia Rosengard. Abby and I met through mutual friends years ago and found that we had a lot in common -- both therapists, both the mothers of two children, from Jewish background and growing up in New England. During the pandemic, we met often on my back deck for "deck time" in order to keep our social skills sharp and to not go entirely stir crazy in our isolation.

I write today because in the past three months, Abby has learned that she has an extremely rare neurological condition that is rapidly robbing her of her eyesight. It started as blurry vision that was dismissed by her eye doctor as "anxiety," and quickly progressed in the past few weeks to near total central vision blindness. She has been working with a neurological ophthalmologist who originally told her that she would not lose all of her vision, would never need to use a cane, and that there was a possibility that the condition could be reversed if caught quickly enough. The variant of the disorder that she has has proven all of those predictions to be inaccurate.

Over the past few months, she has needed to pay out of pocket for genetic testing, has had to reduce her caseload in order to attend medical appointments, and has needed to replace her dishwasher. Many of us have encouraged her to take some time off from work in order to get used to her new reality and she is finally considering it.

The funds that you donate will go toward helping Abby to take a couple of months off from work so that she can learn how to live, work, and thrive as a newly nearly blind person. She needs this time to take stock of her living situation, learn how to use a cane, and figure out the technology that will allow her to keep helping others as she has done for almost her entire life.

Those of you who know Abby know that she has always been a bright light -- colorful, compassionate, giving, and funny. This rapid decline in her sight has dimmed her quality of life considerably but those of us who love her know that, given time, she will be resilient in the face of this tragic diagnosis and reality. Thank you for helping out -- no contribution is too small to help our friend, neighbor, and family member.