Vision Loss

Suzanne Lichtfuss received terrifying news from a neuro-ophthalmologist at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Lichtfuss, who wore glasses only when she drove, was told she was going blind in both eyes--quickly. Her peripheral or side vision was slipping away; her central vision could begin to erode at any time; she had episodes of darkness in both eyes and excruciating headaches. The culprit was an excess amount of spinal fluid circulating in the brain, Dr. Shalom E. Kelman informed her.

Seventeen years ago, Sophia Myers' future didn't seem so bright. She had just lost her husband and was a senior citizen with no money in the bank. To make matters worse, she had recently gone blind. But instead of slowly fading away, Myers, who was 70, founded the San Fernando Valley's first and only center for the visually disabled. Today, the Sofia Myers Center in Van Nuys is the only social service facility serving the estimated 7,000 blind senior citizens who live in the Valley.

Part 1 of a two-part series on concussions in action sports. Part 2 Sunday will focus on 40-year-old BMX rider Kevin Robinson. Action sports superstar Travis Pastrana tells a story about his uncle, Alan Pastrana, who suffered a major concussion near the end of his two-year tenure as a quarterback for the Denver Broncos in the late 1960s. He was 26 when his NFL career ended. "He went from a very tough, tough guy to super emotional, super sensitive, the most 'huggy' man you'd ever see," Travis says.

There is a silver lining to Monrovia's loss of 525 jobs in the announced departure of World Vision U.S.--the city will probably get property taxes from the tax-exempt charity's nine buildings, totaling $180,000 a year, city officials said. Also, World Vision's departure will open up a piece of prime property--a 30,000-square-foot building along the Foothill Freeway near West Huntington Drive.

Eang Long cried for many days after the Khmer Rouge soldier beat her brother and his three children to death. She vividly recalls how the soldier threw the youngest child, a 3-month-old, against a tree until the baby died. "My eyesight started to get terrible after I saw the tragedy," Long said. "Because I was crying so hard and long, my eyes were red and started to swell up. Then I started to have problems with my eyesight." Trauma From Genocide A decade later, Long, 65, who now lives in Long Beach, still has days when shadows--like silent phantoms of the past--obscure her vision.

Charles White, former Heisman Trophy winner and now assistant coach at USC, put his arm around Arizona running back Ontiwaun Carter as the two walked into the tunnel toward the locker rooms at the Coliseum Saturday. The Trojans had just defeated the Wildcats, 45-28. "I pretty much wished him well and said there's going to be games like this," said White, whom Carter considers a hero from his hometown of Pacoima. "But I think he's got a chance to play on Sundays (in the NFL)."

Have you heard the one about the blind man who walked into the Department of Motor Vehicles office in Santa Monica, took an eye test and left with a new driver's license? OK, that's not 100% accurate. He didn't walk out with his new license; it arrived in the mail two weeks later. The man, 72-year-old Mark Overland of Pacific Palisades, is legally blind, with 94% of his vision gone. When Overland first told me about his adventure, he said he didn't want anyone at the DMV to lose a job over this.

The product: Eye supplements are a hot topic of conversation in Kerry Beebe's optometry office in Brainerd, Minn., right up there with the weather and Frances McDormand trivia. "We field questions about vitamins multiple times a day," says Beebe, chairman of the Clinical Care Group for the American Optometric Assn. Patients mainly want to know if vitamins can help save them from macular degeneration, the leading cause of severe vision loss in America.

Flashy lasers get much of the attention in vision-correcting surgery, but they can't fix severe shortsightedness. For those wearing the thickest glasses, a newer procedure provides better eyesight with less risk of vision loss, according to a recent study. In this alternative procedure, surgeons insert a new lens inside the eye, behind the colored iris. It's like a contact lens that sits inside the eye. In a May 12 review by the nonprofit Cochrane Collaboration, which analyzes healthcare data, the authors reported that internal contacts make people in the middle-to-high range of shortsightedness happier with their vision than does Lasik.