Blinded Brothers Fight for Vision

These boys have been on an emotional roller coaster for 11 years. They can see things for two weeks and then it’s back to darkness again. This time, though, I am very confident they will do well, and their quality of life will be a lot better.” --Dr. Jeffrey Robin, ophthalmological surgeon at Estelle Doheny Eye Medical Clinic at USC

On Sept. 13, 1974, that good quality of life that Dr. Jeffrey Robin is speaking of first ended for Ricky and Jimmy Sperry, then 9 and 13 years old.

School was starting in a week. The two youngsters had spent a pleasant summer with their family in the San Gabriel Valley, riding their bikes and roller-skating on the sidewalks and streets of Monrovia and Duarte. They read, watched TV, went fishing and to the beach and shared a common interest in cars.

In the backyard at their home, Jimmy Sperry often played catch with his younger brother. Jimmy had played Little League baseball. Now that he was old enough (Little League runs from ages 8 to 12), Ricky Sperry looked forward to playing in the league next summer.

But, in a split-second accident--when they dropped a cooler which had an attached ammonia-filled tank as they were carrying it from a construction site where their father, Fred, was working--Ricky and Jimmy Sperry were blinded.

The ammonia splashed over them when the cooler hit the ground, burning their faces and eyes.

“It was a refrigerated tank of ammonia, a unit in an old wine cooler,” Jimmy Sperry said last week as he waited for an examination with his brother and mother, Beverly, at the Doheny Eye Clinic at County-USC Medical Center. “We were lifting the tank, we had it up to our knees and it slipped and blew out. It was like an explosion.”

“Richard was smaller and closer to it,” said Beverly Sperry. “He got the worst of the burn. Ricky’s eye had to be completely sewed shut at one time. They both had perfect vision before. But this was so bad it even took the color out of the center of their eyes for awhile.”

Jimmy Sperry turned 24 two weeks ago; his brother is now 20. In the 11 years that have passed, the Sperry brothers have had 16 operations. Ricky has had 10 cornea transplants, five in each eye. Jimmy, six, five in his left eye, one in the right.

Both brothers have been able to see only blurred images of things at a distance of a few inches. They were able to attend school by using a Visualtek (a television-like machine that magnifies words) at school.

Two weeks ago, Robin implanted a new cornea in each of the boys’ right eyes, and so far, both transplants are successful.

But their fight for more normal vision is far from ended.

Restored sight from previous operations has lasted from a week to six months. Each time their bodies rejected the transplants.

Ricky Sperry’s tenth operation last March restored his sight for only three days.

“That’s what’s always been the worst part,” he said. “It’s being able to see for awhile and then not. Taking it away again.”

Lots of Sad Cases

“We see a lot of sad cases here,” said Robin. “But this is the saddest, two brothers blinded from one incident. I am convinced something can be done for them. We do this routinely. Not everyone gets back to 20/20, but anything is better than shadow.”

What worries Robin now is the possibility of the Sperry brothers rejecting the transplants once again.

“It’s not going to be an easy course,” he said. “The chances of success decrease after each rejection. But they’re making great progress. It’s like any other transplant, heart, kidney, with the possibility of rejection. But we’re fortunate in cornea work that the body does not so often reject as in heart transplants.”

After examining the Sperry brothers last Thursday, Robin was pleased with their progress. “Rick is 20/80, that’s the best he’s seen in years. And Jimmy is 20/50. They’re both commenting that their vision is a lot brighter and better. They have very clear corneas and quiet eyes (not inflamed) right now.”

Robin explained that there is no set time during which rejection of the transplants may occur. “But the first six months, as far as the grafts go, are extremely critical.”

Still, he noted: “We had a woman come in here recently. She had had a transplant 25 years ago in New York, and it was now rejecting.”

The boys have their eyes examined by Robin twice a week and have to put steroid drops in their eyes every hour and take steroid pills to reduce the chance of rejection and infection. Corneas used in transplants must be removed from donors within 12 hours after death, Robin said. “Then we place them in a certain solution of nutrients and antibiotics and we can keep them viable in that for three days. There is research being done now that will keep them for two months.”

“Before the operation, I could not see the big E on the chart any farther away then six inches,” said Ricky Sperry. “I hadn’t read anything, a magazine or a book, for a year and a half. Now I can almost read the fifth line down on the chart with my new eye. And everything is really crisp. The colors. You look at a carpet and you say, ‘Oh, that has brown in it.’ I didn’t know that before.”

Lounging on the sofa at their home in Monrovia, Ricky and Jimmy Sperry have been looking at “everything.” The family moved into a new house the week before their latest operation, and things are quite new for them.

Their parents are recalling the pain and dismay felt by the whole family during the last 11 years. There are three other Sperry sons, two married, one in the service.

“In all this,” said Ricky, “my hearing got better. I can hear things nobody else can. But my eyes used to be so bad I couldn’t even stand lights. In the house I used to wear ski goggles with filters.”

Even though they couldn’t see more than a few inches, the Sperry brothers tried to live normal lives. They rode their bikes and took up jogging, then running.

“Sometimes we ran into poles or trees,” said Jimmy. “But we just tried to do what we could. We’d go to the store sometimes with Mom and lose her. Then we’d just pretend it was a mistake and wait for her to come get us.”

The boys sometimes went to movies, usually a frustrating experience. “We couldn’t see them,” said Ricky. “We just listened and learned to do what the crowd does.”

Jimmy has competed in several 10K runs. Once he finished slower than he should have because he missed the gate and went the wrong way at the finish line. “We just tried not to let people know how blind we were. I didn’t let on. There’s a trick to it. You just find the guy with the brightest shirt and follow him.”

The Sperry brothers continued to be interested in cars, and in 1983 bought their uncle’s old van to work on and show at custom-car shows. “It took us four months,” Jimmy said proudly. “But we did it, mostly by feel, rather than sight.”

“That was when my vision wasn’t the best,” said Ricky. “But I’d run my hand over it and if I felt one pit, we’d have it painted again after we finished the body work. That van was painted 10 times.”

Took First Place

The boys’ efforts paid off. They entered the van in the Victorville Custom Car, Cycle and Hot Rod Show in January, 1984, and took first place in the custom van class. The large trophy sits on a dresser in Ricky’s bedroom.

“If these (the transplants) work this time, we’d both like to go to trade school and study auto body work and auto electrics,” said Jimmy. “We’ll probably always work together.”

Ricky graduated from Gladstone High School in Covina; Jimmy dropped out in the 12th grade. He would like to go back and finish at some point, he says.

“There were just too many hard things. They used to put me in the back of the class and I couldn’t see anything. Mom had to read my homework to me. Sometimes they would make me go to the principal’s office because they thought I was on drugs because of my eyes. I wore dark glasses most of the time. But finally I dropped out. Most of the time we pass it (the sight problem) off good. A lot of people don’t know we’re this bad.”

Although their pretense of sight worked much of the time, the Sperry brothers still are dependent on their parents or neighbors to drive them places.

Because of their vision problems, their social development has suffered. Neither has ever had a date with a girl, they said.

“At first,” said Beverly Sperry. “We were so overprotective. We didn’t want to let them do anything. Then, we decided that they had to try to live as normally as possible under the circumstances. But I still worry about them when they’re out.”

Long ago, said Fred Sperry, the family exhausted its medical insurance. Most of the boys’ medical bills are paid by Medi-Cal. For these last operations, though, Robin donated the surgery; the Lions Doheny Eye Bank donated the corneas; Doheny Eye Hospital its services.

Over the years since the accident, Fred Sperry has spent much of his time passing out eye donor cards to people, hoping to get them to sign up to donate their corneas after deaths. “I can’t say enough good things about Doheny and the eye bank director, Don Ward.

A Coroner’s Law

In California, Robin said, there is a “coroner’s law that allows us to remove the corneas from persons under coroner jurisdiction, like homicides, suicides, deaths at home from unexplained causes if there is no objection from the family.

“Because of that,” he added. “The waiting time (for transplants) has been reduced in Los Angeles County from over a year to one month.

“(Cornea donation) is not disfiguring in any way,” he explained. “What we remove is about the size of a dime. The eye itself is intact.”

The Estelle Doheny Eye Foundation was founded in 1947 by Carrie Estelle Doheny, widow of oilman Edward Doheny. She was a victim of eye disease and eventually lost her sight. The foundation originally was located at St. Vincent’s Hospital, but it moved in 1975 to County-USC Medical Center. In addition to the foundation, there is the Estelle Doheny Eye Medical Clinic and the Estelle Doheny Eye Hospital within the confines of the USC medical complex.

“I intend to keep right on working, getting the word out about the good things Doheny does,” Fred Sperry continued. “One thing I hope I can get people to realize is that even though they have lost a loved one, the parts of the body that they can give can give someone else sight. Especially to kids.”

Right now, the Sperry family is doing a lot of praying, Fred Sperry said. “We are just hoping and praying every day that this one takes. The boys are not handicapped people. They are persons with a handicap. But if this works, they’ll have a lot better chance in life.”