BLIND REGGIE’S MIRACLE ‘I CAN SEE AGAIN!’
For 16 years Big Brother winner Reggie has been losing her sight – until now
Just one year after winning Big Brother – and the hearts of Australia – in 2003, Reggie Sorensen found out she had degenerative eye condition and was slowly but surely going blind. But a pioneering new technique has helped significantly improve her sight and, more importantly, given her hope there may be light after ever-increasing, soul-destroying darkness.
“When my eye specialist said there’s a small chance he can restore part of my sight, I couldn’t believe it,” brave Reggie, 46, tells Woman’s Day from her Gold Coast home. “I raced home to tell the kids and we hugged each other so tight – it’s a moment I’ll treasure forever!”
Diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa in 2004, Reggie has lived with the terrifying reality that one day she will lose her sight completely – while raising Mia, 13, and Lucas, 10, as a single mum with a limited income.
Enter renowned Gold Coastbased ophthalmologist Dr Robert Bourke, who offered the former fish and chip shop owner from Tasmania a lifeline.
“Aside from having only 10 per cent sight, both my eyes developed serious cataracts, which he recommended taking out one at a time, and if that didn’t work, he had a plan to follow up with a ground-breaking procedure known as the piggyback technique,” she explains.
“I regret going to another doctor through the public system to have my right eye done and when I realised it wasn’t quite right, I turned again to the brilliant Dr Bourke.
BREAKTHROUGH
“He’s now lasered holes to break it up, and so far, so good! And
I get to wear these snazzy glasses – for the first time in my life I actually look intelligent!”
It’s three months on since the first operation, and Reggie can’t wait until the next round of surgery, which should deliver even more good news.
“It’s like a fogginess has lifted, is the best way to describe it,” she says with a beaming smile. “It still needs tweaking but we’re getting there. I will never regain my full sight – but that’s OK – it just means I can’t see the increasing number of wrinkles I’m getting!”
And to brighten her life even more, her son Lucas, who suffers from cystic fibrosis, is responding well to the new drug Orkambi, which only recently became available in Australia.
“He’s a little champion, and every day surprises me with his unbelievable determination to
fight this hideous illness,” she says. “They tease me about my glasses, saying Mum thinks she’s so smart now! Mia said to me she’s excited because now I could actually see her graduate.
“That’s when the tears came. Even in these trying times, one little ray of hope gives me every reason to get up tomorrow morning knowing I can still see the sun shine and my kids smile – that’ll do it for me!”
‘A fogginess has lifted... I can see the sun shine and my kids smile’