A few ​​years back, a rare stem cell transplant gave Amber Needham her sight back. She’s doing her part now in the hope that awareness can help others get the same help she received. Needham, and good friend Mike Rousseau, of St. Thomas, ON., are on a provincial tandem cycling trip, which will see them hit Peterborough around Aug. 12.

They’ve set a fundraising goal — $80,000 — which will be used to start an ocular stem cell database and registry. However, the trip is also about raising awareness for something she says should be more easily attainable if more people were aware of the need and the ease of donating.

On July 23, the pair spoke to Peterborough This Week from the shores of Lake Mindemoya on Manitoulin Island. Their trek saw them leave St. Thomas on July 4 before hitting centres like Chatham, Goderich and Tobermory. From Manitoulin, they will head to Sudbury, east to North Bay and Ottawa, then swing down to the community en route to North York on Aug. 20, where they will meet up with the doctor who helped restore Needham’s site.

They’re on a tandem bike because of a fluke accident. After her eye repair, Needham was injured again and could barely see. “I'm doing this too because my heart wants to give back to the hospital that took care of me,” she said.  Her journey to sight loss began eight years ago. “I had pristine vision until 2014,” the 58-year-old says. She was using an eye lubricant and says it had been the subject of a government recall — a matter that she wasn’t aware off. In two months, the retired day-spa owner had lost her sight. She had begun a career as a fitness trainer before losing her vision.  Fortunately, she says, she had been referred to Dr. Clara Chan, a renowned specialist in cornea, cataract and refractive surgery.

Two years after the eye lubricant incident, she had a stem cell transplant that gave her full vision again.  A freak kitchen accident, where she was splashed in the eye with liquids from a compost bucket, caused a fungal growth that wiped her vision away again. “By the grace of God, the fungal infection ceased to grow. They were able to get it eradicated.” She has glaucoma now and cannot see peripherally. But she’s still grateful to have some vision and is eager to help Chan in quest to create a stem cell registry for people with vision problems. “ … So that the patients like myself do not have to go out in search of their own donors.” With the system in place, donors would see a piece of their cornea removed, Needham says, but it heals quickly. “The donor heals within a week and just goes on about their life. So, behind this registry, they would be fully aware of what the requirements are, what the responsibility is, and it takes the stress away from the donor as well.”
She is committed to raising $80,000, which would go directly to the ophthalmology department and specifically to Chan’s registry project. Needham is also raising funds through the sale of her book — The Blind Girl Sees — which is available through Friesen Press for about $24.