Helping Paul see again

Paul was a hard worker. Since high school, he had never been unemployed for long. But one day, that all changed. First, he was in an accident that left him temporarily unable to work. Then, the loss of income led to a worsening of his diabetes.

“The amount and types of food I was able to consume was not really great for the diabetes side of it, it was all rather starchy,” he said.

Finally, his diabetes began to affect his eyesight, until one day, he realized he was rapidly going blind.

“I was having a lot of trouble seeing anything at all,” he said. “I was frustrated, depressed, and feeling the weight of the world and trying to get back to where I was, but things were not happening the way I anticipated.”

With no income and no health insurance, Paul decided getting disability benefits was his only hope. But when he contacted a lawyer seeking advice on the process, the lawyer told him about the PACS Health Clinic, and he decided to check it out.

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“It was awesome!” he said. “They got me right in and signed me up for the Oregon Health Plan. They were able to get me in pretty quickly to Dr. Malos to get control of my diabetes.”

The clinic also referred Paul to an eye doctor. Today, Paul had surgery on his right eye to have a cataract removed. The initial results are good, and now, for the first time, Paul is hopeful that he might regain his sight. He’s not sure how much damage was done to his other eye, but says even getting full vision back in one eye would make all the difference.

“That would be awesome!” he said. “I would be able to go back to work and do everything that I was doing prior to this complication in my life.”

Paul shudders to think where he’d be if it weren’t for people like you who help struggling people with food and health care access. “I wouldn’t be doing so hot,” he said. “I definitely would probably be completely blind.”

Instead, Paul is living proof of how meeting someone’s basic needs can turn their whole life around. He now has hope, and wants to share it with others. “I hope to live a productive life for society and be there for other people,” he said. “Since I’ve been down on my luck, there have been a lot of people around me that were there for me to help me out, so I’d like to be able to be there for other people."

If you would like to help someone like Paul, make a donation today, or sign up to volunteer. Without donors and volunteers, people like Paul would have nowhere to turn.