There may be HOPE for the sight of my right eye?

When I clicked the Yahoo homepage this evening to check my e-mails, my attention was caught by Yahoo's feature news entitled, "Scientists Plan Stem Cell Cure for Blindness". The article featured the new discovery by British scientists the use of stem cells to cure a common form of blindness. The article caught my eye because (as not a lot of people may know) my right eye cannot see. The images coming from my right eye are so blurry that I could harldy identify who or what they are.

When I was around four years old, I had an accident that led me to losing the vision of my right eye. My little brother and I were playing when a toy metallic plane's wings hit my eye and caused the laceration of my cornea. I had to wear glasses at an early age just to correct my right eye's vision, but later on it proved to be futile. The doctor informed me that my brain had shut out completely any image that my right eye sends for comprehension. The irregular images sent by my right eye coupled with the normal ones sent by my left eye caused confusion to my brain's system, so that it decided to shut off completely all images sent by my right eye so as to avoid conflict. I now use my left eye's vision to see the beauty of the things surrounding me.

Anyway, I thought that the article that captured my attention was gonna be a solution to my eye problems, but it wasn't.

LONDON (Reuters) - British
scientists plan to use stem cells to cure a common form of blindness, with the
first patients receiving test treatment in five years.

The pioneering project, launched on Tuesday, aims to repair damaged retinas with
cells derived from human embryonic stem cells. Its backers say it involves
simple surgery that could one day become as routine as cataract operations.
They believe the technique is capable of restoring vision in the vast
majority of patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading
cause of blindness among the elderly that afflicts around 14 million people in
Europe.
Some drugs, like Genentech Inc.'s Lucentis, can help the one in 10
patients with so-called "wet" AMD and U.S. biotech firm Advanced Cell Technology
is looking at stem cells in other eye conditions. But there is no treatment for
the 90 percent with "dry" AMD.
AMD is caused by faulty retinal pigment
epithelial (RPE) cells, which form a supporting carpet under the light-sensitive
rods and cones in the retina.
The new procedure will generate replacement
RPE cells from stem cells in the lab, with surgeons then injecting a small patch
of new cells, measuring 4 by 6 millimeters, back into the eye.

(full article: Scientists plan stem cell cure for blindness . )

But as you can see, the newly discovered treatment focuses on retina and AMD problems only. And the embryonic stem cell treatment is still at its trial stage. No sure way of knowing if it will work on humans because the last thing the scientists tested it on before humans were rats.

But hey, I'm not giving up my hopes of curing the sight of my right eye, with the major advancements in medicine today that's sprouting here and there, the next thing I'll know nothing in the medicine world is incurable... even HIV-AIDS and all forms and types of cancer.

As people we love to hope... hope for change, hope for love, hope for newer and brighter things in life. This is because hope is like food for the soul of human beings. When everything around them is for naught, they can always hold on like dear life on hope... hope that one day things would get better... (and guess what, most of the time, things almost always gets better! ^_^)

So yeah, my hopes are still high that someday soon I'll be seeing the world's reflection using BOTH my right and left eye, and then I'd say to myself: "What a wonderful world..."

=D