Justin's Page

Hello,
My name is Justin. I am the recipiant of Bob's left cornea. I got your letter today and my clever wife found his website and there I found this email address. Please reply and I will tell you more about myself and how Bob's donation improved my life.

Thank you
Justin

Hello Patricia,
You are so welcome for my letter. My surgeon's office called me a week and a half ago to see if I wanted a letter that the family had written to me. I said yes and they mailed it to me and I received it on the day I sent the e-mail.

About myself, My name is Justin. I live in New Mexico and I am married to my soul mate (Kris). We have three dogs, five cats, and about thirty fish. They are considered our kids because we don't plan to have any in the near future. We have a beautiful house on two acres of land in the Espanola Valley which is north of Santa Fe about 20 miles.

About five years ago, while in the Marine Corp, I was diagnosed with an eye disease called keratoconus. It is a disease that deteriorates the cornea until it is to thin to function. I had to wear hard contacts which are real uncomfortable. The disease progressed until my optometrist could not correct the eye to anything better than 20/40. He referred me to an opthamologist and after a few visits he recommended a cornea transplant. That was in February of 2005. He set a date for April 25th. The date was prosponed in the last week until April 28th. The operation was a success. The cornea is stitched in. The stitches were in for eight months. Then the surgeon went in and made a few relieving cuts (I forgot the name of the procedure). Then stitched them to fine tune the vision. The best they have corrected me to is 20/15 but that was about a year ago. I still have six stitches in my eye and we will see what happens on my next visit at the end of the month.

I am so sorry for your loss of Bob and I know he is a lot happier now without the need for a wheelchair and the hospitals. I am thankful for the gift of vision which was given to me from Bob. I have put Bob's picture in our picture frame of our close friends and relatives and when anybody asks, they will know who Bob is.

I am sending a picture of me and my wife. This was taken on our last anniversary (New Years eve) in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

Thanks again,
Justin

...The eye disease that I have affected both eyes. My left one was no longer correctable to even drive so they did that one first. The doctors say that as long as they can get 20/30 vision out of the right one, they would not want to put me through anymore ristk. The disease is herediatry. My grandfather had it and got both corneas replaced in the early 80s. Nobody ever told me but one day I mentioned to may father that I was getting a cornea transplant and he said that hid father had one too. I asked the doctors if it could skip a generation because none of my aunts and uncles have it. He said that the disease does skip a generation and I was the lucky one. I was still able to see before the transplant. Not very good. I think the best I could get is 20/45 with correction contact lenses. When in the military, The doctors told me that I would probrobly be blind by age of 35 and that scared me to death but then I talked to someone that had some sense and he told me about the disease and how we can fix it. I was in the marines. Five years of my life was all I was willing to give. I never had to go to the middle east. I got out October of 2002 and my unit left a month later. I did do most of my time overseas though. I have seen most of erope and africa and even north to Norway. I was a helicopter mechanic in the marines so with my experiance being a mechanic, I became a facility mechanic for the Los Alamos National Labs. I am sure you have heard of the labs. It is where the a bomb was built in the 40s. It is a neat place to work but it is a nuclear facility so I will probably glow green in my later years. I am pretty close to Bobs age. I was born on May 25th of 79 so he was about ten months older than me.
Take care

Justin