I was driving home.
As I was going through the lights I was squinting to see what color the light was.
I remember thinking that was strange.
About 6-7 months after I started noticing a change in my vision
I got my legal letter of blindness that stated "permanent."
I thought, "oh my god what do I do now?"
We’re treating the untreatable.
These people are blind...
I have the privilege to try to restore sight.
When I first lost my eyesight
I was barely 23.
I was starting the process to become a police officer.
In the midst of all that, that's exactly when this all hit.
I called the vision center and I went.
And he said “This is beyond my scope. This is your nerves not your eyes.”
They ran the MRI and said,
“Ms. Belton we have to check you into the hospital for a week and run more tests.”
I spent a week everyday getting no answers.
We don’t know and will probably never know what I have.
But what we do know is that it is an autoimmune reaction.
Your body turning on healthy tissue.
And for me that was my optic nerves.
At my worst there was no functional vision.
I got light and dark prescription and some shadows, but that was it.
I couldn't do anything, I couldn’t use the phone anymore, I couldn’t use the computer
I couldn’t transport myself from point A to point B.
I lost my job.
And for me that was my lowest point.
That was my, "oh my god, what do I do now?"
In that deepest, darkest place I had to do something different.
And I did.
There is technology. There are things that can help you.
Ways to get on the internet, ways to check your mail.
I felt like I was reintroducing myself to the human population. And that sounds silly,
but I felt so detached.
That technology gave me the confidence to even get back online. That’s how I met my wife.
It shifted my life completely.
My first date with Julia was probably very atypical.
Ours was literally a blind date. I couldn’t see her.
Honestly before I met Vanna I had never met a visually impaired person.
Being around and cooking with her and how she genuinely loved and appreciated my company.
I was like wow I could really spend the rest of my life with this person.
Vanna and I have always been determined to figure out what happened to her, how we can fix it.
Everything that some people would deem crazy or unnecessary we did.
So I asked my neurologist at Hopkins, "would you all do a surgery on me?"
Completely experimental, I understand. And I’ll sign all the waivers.
It wasn’t that long after that same neurologist sent me a two line email.
It was to clinicaltrials.gov.
And we just both felt like this is it. This is what we’ve been waiting for.
I gathered my hundreds of pages of medical files, sent it in.
Within days I was told “you’re a candidate.”
When Vanna first came to me she had a five year history of being blind.
She was led into the room, she had a white cane that she was using to move side to side so she could see.
Dr. Weiss, he doesn’t make false promises. He said “I can’t guarantee you will get your sight back,
but I can guarantee you I am going to try.”
We take your stem cells form your bone marrow,
we inject them into the optic nerve to treat untreatable retinal and optic nerve conditions.
You have your own stem cells as an adult, they exist in our bodies
and we can harvest that and become your own cure.
It is privately funded, meaning patient funded.
We did have to figure out, okay, how are we going to pay for this?
Roughly $20,000.
And that was what our wedding budget was.
Close your eyes for 24 hours and imagine you never get to open them again...
you are willing to do more things than you realize.
That decision between wedding and eyesight was a no brainer.
We obviously went for the eyesight.
Just want to wish you best of luck, lots of love and positivity.
I’m excited. I’m going to wake up in a lot of pain, but it's going to be so much better.
Love you, baby.
Love you too.
They extracted bone marrow out of my hip.
From that bone marrow, they spun it down to get a pure sample of stem cells.
And then they injected in it into my eyes, into my optic nerve and then into an IV, and that’s it.
A stem cell has the ability to transition into another type of cell.
And hopefully placing it in an area where there is some type of damage,
it will transition into a cell necessary to improve function.
Initially after the surgery my vision was even worse.
I was discouraged.
Three months and three days after the surgery, I'm staring across the family room.
And it was like a "gasp moment."
I looked up and looked at her and I just knew she could see me.
I was like she’s hot! I was excited.
I felt lucky, I already knew that inside she was amazing and beautiful,
and to actually get to see with defined lines, I was like, damn!
She knew for certain that when we were saying our vows and saying “I do,”
that I was actually looking her in the eye.
So now we are sitting here at Silver Spring Restaurant,
and she can start making out the letters, so it says Devon Self Storage.
So this is hope.The stem cells are working. Thanks Dr. Weiss.
I’m treating people who have been told their whole lives you have no hope,
you’re stuck.
These people are suffering and somebody has to help them.
It is my privilege to be the one to try.
This is incredible, it gives my life meaning.
After the surgery I went from 28/100 to 20/20 in my left and 20/50 in my right eye.
You don’t know how much you’ve given back to my life, our life, so thank you.
That's why I do this.
This is awesome. I’ll see you in 3 months with more improvement.
That's right.
I think I have become a better person for going through the experience of losing vision,
and going through the darkness and fighting to come out on the other side.
And it’s given me an opportunity to be a part of this experimental procedure
that I think is going to change the world.