All my life, people have asked me, “What happened to your vision? Were you born blind?” Well, here’s the story told to me by my mother in her own words.
Dear Judy,
When you were 3 weeks old, you gave me the most terrific scare. Your dad was already out in the field plowing at Genessee. Usually you started crying before I got the children off to school. So when the kids left, I thought, “Judy hasn’t awakened yet. I’d better check on her.” I found you on your stomach in your basket cradle—not breathing—blue. I picked you up and shook you and rushed to the phone and called the operator. I grabbed you by the ankles, tipped you upside down, turned you back up and heard you take in a breath. I cried and called the operator and told her my baby was dead. She called the rescue squad. I put you on the kitchen table and watched you breathe in and out. It took you 1 minute to breathe in and 1 minute to breathe out. I wrapped you up and drove to the field. Harvey said that all should be fine now that you were breathing. I drove back to the house—the rescue squad was there—they had oxygen, but said as long as you were breathing, there was nothing they could do.
You didn’t open your eyes for a day. On the 2nd day, you developed a twitch in your right hand which made it open and close about once every ten secods. I felt it was a nervous reaction, but when you developed a twitch in your mouth, and it made it difficult to nurse, we took you to the doctor. They put you in the hospital and gave you a strong drug which stopped the twitching. They took a brain wave test which didn’t say much. So on your second day there, they wanted to do surgery on you to determine whether you had developed fluid on the brain.
We denied surgery, and removed you from the hospital without their permission. They felt you would certainly start twitching again when taken off the drugs. Well, you never did!
While at the hospital, I came home from a 4 times a day visit from nursing declaring to your dad that you were blind. Harvey said it was a nervous reaction on my part, but when you came back home (you were in Waukesha Memorial Hospital) we tiptoed in your room with a flashlight. You were awake. Your eyes never blinked at the light or followed the light of the flashlight. The room was dark. Harvey and I fell on our knees, and both cried, and prayed—we prayed that God would help us raise our precious little girl. He did, Judy!
Love, Mom
Judy Turner Kilian Music 