Women Making a Difference

The Days of Light

	Lusik Yeritsyan and her family. Source: AECP

Lusik Yeritsyan

Lusik Yeritsyan and her family live on the outskirts of Artsvaberd, a small village in Armenia. The house has a living room, one bedroom, a kitchen, and a corridor where Lusik’s bed is. Like other unemployed villagers, her family of eight – her husband Armen, son and daughter-in-law, Ashot and Maro, and five grandchildren, age five to sixteen – live off their land, a few sheep and hens, and Lusik and Armen’s pensions.

Apart from the family’s hardships, Lusik had another challenge to cope with – she was going blind in both eyes from cataracts. “It was two years and a month since I had last seen with my eyes. I had to reduce my movements and spend most of my time indoors because I couldn’t see,” Lusik recalls. She even kept a calendar where she noted every day of her increasing blindness.

Lusik was first examined by a doctor when the Mobile Eye Hospital (MEH) of the joint USAID/Armenia Eyecare Project Global Development Alliance initiative visited her village for eye screenings and treatment. Once Lusik’s cataracts were diagnosed, she was scheduled for surgery on both eyes. Lusik was skeptical, “The doctors said they could restore my sight with the surgery, but I didn’t believe I could ever see again.”

When Dr. Asatour Hovsepian removed the bandages following her second surgery in the Mobile Eye Hospital, Lusik’s was estatic. “I had these ‘clouds’ in my eyes, then blindness took over. Now the clouds are gone and I see light, I see people. I am telling you I am reborn!” she exclaimed, hardly recognizing her grandchildren who had grown so much since she saw them years ago.

Story provided by the USAID/Armenia Eyecare Project

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