Bloomington Doctor heads to Honduras

The other night I had dinner with our Bloomington eye doctor, Doctor Steven I. Ball (I know, great name for an eye doctor).  He was telling me about his upcoming trip to Honduras, which he has taken every year or two for the past 30 years to give eye examinations to the local residents.  He goes down there with a few other doctors and they take a large number of donated glasses with them, all of which are tagged with the prescription and ready to be given to those in need.

Doctor Ball was telling me about one gentleman who had a -7 Rx, which is pretty high, and he had never had glasses and lenses for vision correction.  When he got the glasses, he came back over to Doctor Ball and told him something that translated to “I can see the next country”.  It is amazing how much we take vision correction for granted and to hear a great story about how much this impacted the gentleman.

The interesting part of his trip is that since the glasses are donated, they aren’t always the exact prescription necessary.  For the majority of people who need the glasses, though, close enough is much better than not being able to see at all.

I am looking forward to hearing some more of his stories when he returns to Bloomington and I am hoping to have him write some personal items to share with everyone.