I’ve worn glasses for most of my life, and even though my prescription isn’t too severe, it’s still required that I wear glasses. I can’t drive or read signs, otherwise! While I’m not legally blind and a simple prescription can help me see better, I am still eternally grateful for the glasses and contact lenses I use every day to give me good vision. Every time I use one or the other, I have a moment of clarity, where everything that’s blurry suddenly becomes clear and focused.
And, that’s what happened for Gene Purdie, but on a much bigger scale. At 16 years old, Gene was diagnosed with Stargardt’s, a disease that affects the retina and makes the central vision go blurry. While he’s not totally blind, he’s considered legally blind, his vision greatly impaired, affecting how he sees features and faces and the world around him.
Gene has learned to live with his disease, and lives his life as best he can. He met his wife Joy and the two have a son named Lincoln. Even with his condition, Gene is still a whizz in the kitchen, and Joy says that Gene can whip up something in 30 minutes as opposed to her taking two hours to make the same dish!
It was on one particular day when Joy was watching the Rachael Ray show that she saw a guest getting fitted with a special pair of glasses. She, too, suffered from Stargardt’s and with the use of the glasses, she was temporarily able to see. Joy immediately burst into tears at this incredible revelation and says this was “the most exciting day of my life.” Joy wasted no time in writing a letter to the show to explain her personal story and detailing her husband’s challenges. She deliberately mentions how he’s been such a fighter his entire life, and how amazing of a husband and father he is, while further explaining how much she wants him to be able to see their son, clearly, for the first time.
It wasn’t long before the show contacted her back, and the family was brought on to try out the glasses. Gene, Joy, and Lincoln are on stage with Rachael herself and a representative from eSight, Taylor West. He describes the technology, “It uses a camera. It captures a video, runs it through a computer to make a bunch of different adjustments to every pixel of that image and then puts it on high definition screens. The resulting video is customized so that someone with low vision gets more out of the sight they have remaining and it should take them back to what we call typical eyesight.”
Click below to watch the exact moment Gene can finally see his family clearly, in detail and in perfect focus, for the first time! The first thing he says when he sees Joy? “She’s pretty!” It’s a very teary-eyed moment that brings joy to everyone involved. The family even gets to keep the special glasses at the end!
