It was a Wednesday afternoon when Nguru came tot he TULISA supported Kibera Health Centre. During the counselling she described her health problem:
Since years she suffers from increasing impairment of her eyesight until she could barely count the fingers of a hand 1 meter in front of her eyes. The diagnosis was extreme shortsight de facto blindness. Further examination revealed a keratoconus of the cornea on both sides.

Keratoconus is a progressive eye disease in which the normally round cornea thins and begins to bulge into a cone-like shape. This cone shape deflects light as it enters the eye on its way to the light-sensitive retina, causing distorted vision.

We introduced Nguru to German eye doctor Dr Martin Kollmann, Head of the Eye Department of the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. He confirmed the diagnosis and recommended based on the severity of the disease cornea transplant. Since Keratoconus is rather rare, the cornea transplant requires a specialist to conduct the operation. Dr Kollmann is such a specialist but the possibilities to identify a matching transplant in Kenya a rather limited.

Without hesitation he contacted Mr Klaus Renken from Cornea-Help e.V. Wiesmoor (www.cornea-help.de) and jointly they organised a treatment option in the appropriate specialized Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, India. The journey was not as easy as expected, language difficulties, not predictable administrative barriers on country entry and exit, and subsequently missed flights threated to jeopardize the operation and treatment. Cornea Help reacted promt and efficiently not only covering the treatment costs, but also the original and additional tickets. Finally Nguru was successfully operated in India, first in one eye. The other eye is supposed to be operated on later after recovering from this first operation.

TULISA thanks all supporters and is as blissful as Nguru that she gained her vision back.