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A Christmas miracle: Ukrainian regains his sight after 36 years

2023-12-25 18:41:15Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
A Christmas miracle: Ukrainian regains his sight after 36 years
The Ukrainian regains his sight after 36 years

After the Ukrainian underwent eye surgery, he saw for the first time his wife and children and a much changed world.

By Shaun Walker and Ada Petriczko – The Guardian

It was a week before Christmas last year when Serhiy Sydorenko underwent surgery on his right eye. A difficult operation, but if successful it would end 3 decades of blindness for the 56-year-old.

When the nurses removed the bandages a few hours after the operation he could only see light…white and painful light, as if someone had put an electric light in front of his eyes. The nurses put some drops in his eyes and then re-bandaged them.

A few hours later, they removed it again, and Serhiy could now vaguely see the contours of the nurse's face. The next morning, the professor who operated on him visited him and removed the bandages once again.

Serhiy sat on the bed and looked around. He saw the professor and for the first time from his marriage his wife, Tamara. He excitedly repeated only one word: I can see.

It was the moment he had dreamed of for at least the last 36 years. He lost his sight in a military training in the Soviet army in 1986. 5 years later he married Tamara, while in 2008 he won a bronze medal at the Paralympic Games after becoming a judo athlete.

A Christmas miracle: Ukrainian regains his sight after 36 years

All these years, Serhiy felt supported by others, but also that something was missing from his life. When he traveled the world as an athlete, he couldn't see the places he was visiting. Together with Tamara, they raised a son and a daughter, both teenagers, but he never saw their faces.

When Russia attacked Ukraine last year, the couple left Zhytomyr, a village west of Kiev, and moved to Poznan, a Polish city, with their daughter Margarita. There, Serhiy heard about a professor who performed cornea transplants. In mid-December, he was stabbed.

After several days in the hospital, Serhiy was released on the morning of December 24 with the sight in his right eye completely restored. On their way back, Tamara asked them to hurry so they wouldn't miss the train. But Serhiy's new eye could not catch everything.

When a woman was walking a small furry dog, he stopped to look at her. He remembered the herding dogs of his youth, but he didn't know that people kept small dogs that looked like toys to him. Among other things, he was fascinated by the way people dressed, the buildings, and the way cars looked in 2022. The last time he had seen, most of the cars had been of the Lada type.

The couple caught the train and by the time they reached Poznan it was dinner time. In Poland the main celebration takes place at Christmas dinner and when they got home the table had been carefully laid by Marta, the Polish woman who had been waiting for them in the apartment. Margarita was also present. Serhiy could see his daughter for the first time.

"It was a Christmas miracle," he says, recalling that dinner nearly a year ago.

Serhiy and Tamara still live in Poznan. He wears sunglasses. It is still needed when it comes to light.

A Christmas miracle: Ukrainian regains his sight after 36 years

 

Born in Zhytomyr to a Soviet military family, Serhiy was a sporty child who took up judo at school. In the future, he dreamed of becoming an army officer. At the age of 18, he entered the military college, but an incident there left him blind. He refuses to talk about it.

"These things are better forgotten than remembered, that's how I managed," he says.

Even his doctors couldn't figure out exactly what happened, only that an explosion left him blind. From his left eye he could occasionally see blurry shadows, while from his right, nothing.

The first years were very difficult. Serhiy dropped out of college and now his dream was over. He needed help to accomplish even the simplest tasks. On the way, he developed insomnia and went through a period of depression. It's something you think about often now, as thousands of Ukrainian soldiers return from the war front with serious injuries.

"They need good moral and psychological support," he said.

He credits his parents for not letting him fall to the ground and not turn to alcohol to overcome the pain. He started working at a sports academy in Zhytomyr, where Tamara was a student. She liked the fact that he didn't drink and they started talking after a summer picnic. Soon they started dating until they got married in 1991. In the same year, Ukraine declared independence.

A local judo coach told Serhiy about the Paralympic games and suggested he take up his childhood passion again.

"I lived near the stadium and went there by train. Tamara was driving me. There were three training sessions a day, so I didn't have time to stress," he recalls.

Among other things, he intended to help as much as possible with the housework, as he admits that he broke many things while helping to wash them.

In 1996, he began training with the Ukrainian national judo team and began traveling for his first international challenges. In 2000 and 2004 he came fourth, while in 2008 he won the bronze medal.

Another big moment in his career was the victory in 2003 with the British judoka Simon Jackson winning the world championship of the International Federation of Blind Sports.

Judo helped Serhiy cope physically and psychologically with his lack of sight. It helped him to fall safely, a necessary skill in his circumstances, and it helped him to overcome the feeling of being vulnerable, one of the most difficult effects of blindness.

"One time when my wife and I were walking a person came in front of us, a big man who had been drinking. He didn't want to let us pass and pushed Tamara. I jumped at him and he ended up flying on the asphalt," he says.

Serhiy knew there was a chance for an operation to restore his sight, but it was not performed in Ukraine. Then came the Russian invasion. She didn't want to run away from home, but the daughter was terrified of the sirens warning of attacks, so the family decided to travel to Poland. It was a decision that eventually led to the return of his sight.

The cornea is a transparent cube-shaped membrane. It protects the rest of the eye and must be transparent so that light rays can penetrate and hit the retina. If the cornea loses transparency a person can no longer see.

In Serhiy's case, the heat and chemicals in the explosion had caused severe inflammation and a thick layer of blood vessels had formed in his cornea.

"When I first examined his eyes, I saw a pair of heavy curtains," says Professor Edward Wylęgała. He is the head of the ophthalmology clinic at the Medical University of Silesia.

He immediately says he realized Serhiy could benefit from an artificial cornea implant. This method was developed in 1960 by Claes Dohlman at Harvard Medical School and the Boston cornea was approved by the US FDA in 1992 as an alternative for patients unable to undergo standard corneal transplant procedures.

A Christmas miracle: Ukrainian regains his sight after 36 years

Dohlman, now 102 years old, refused to sell his idea for commercial purposes, and Harvard Medical School remains the sole producer of the Boston cornea. In 2010 after much pleading, the Polish professor convinced Dohlman to donate 5 devices to his hospital. Already in Poland, about 100 operations are performed a year using the Boston cornea.

Since the operation, everything has taken on a new visual dimension for Serhiy. He returned with his wife to Zhytomyr for a few days to visit his elderly mother, son and younger brother who is fighting with the Ukrainian army. The visit coincided with several rocket attacks on the city, making the return bittersweet. However, he had the chance to see many old friends.

"In my head I imagined what they looked like as children, but of course they don't look like that at all now. I don't think I would have recognized any of them if I saw them on the street," he says.

The other person he has trouble recognizing is himself. When he looks in the mirror, he sees the face of a 56-year-old looking back at him. The last time he looked in the mirror was 19 years old. Now he can go around Poznan alone, without help. It seems that so far together with Tamara they have managed to cope with this dramatic change in their lives.

"My life is easier now," he says.

A Christmas miracle: Ukrainian regains his sight after 36 years

This Christmas dinner the family will sit again at Marta's table in Poznan. Serhiy hopes to soon undergo another operation to fully restore sight in his left eye. However, he is looking at new things. He recently took a trip to Sopot, the Baltic Sea coast, and was amazed. He has swam in the ocean in Brazil and Australia before, but he has never seen water.

Some mornings he wakes up wondering if it's all an imagination. Quickly raise your right hand. There is a large birthmark of the girl who likes to rub it for good luck. When he sees it, he calms down. He can still see. "It's still a surprise to me every day," he says.

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