Paullette

Learn about Paullette's experience with myopic choroidal neovascularization.

Wanderlust and curiosity defined Paullette Moorer’s life. She moved from South Carolina to Arizona and later Hawaii. In her youth, a poem she’d read inspired her to move to Australia. “I was independent and liked to move around. I would just pack up and go on my own,” laughs Paullette. “Back when I was working, if you could type and take shorthand, you could find a job anywhere.”

When she was nearing retirement, she began to think of all the new places she could travel. But six months before her last day of work, she noticed a gray cloud develop in her left eye. “I was first told that I had cataracts and would need them removed.” She’d been nearsighted for much of her life, but when she returned to South Carolina, she was referred to a retina specialist was also diagnosed her with myopic choroidal neovascularization (mCNV). mCNV is a complication of severe near-sightedness that can lead to blindness.1

While Paullette was waiting for her cataract surgery and to receive treatments for her mCNV, her eyesight deteriorated badly. “You don’t realize how much you depend on your vision until you’re going to lose it,” she says. Luckily she was physically and emotionally close to her family. One of eleven children, Paullette was able to rely on her sisters for support and to drive her around. While none of her siblings have any symptoms of mCNV, Paullette has helped educate them and her friends, “I would tell them to get your yearly eye exam, and if you hold up a crossword puzzle and the lines look wavy instead of straight, go to a doctor right away.”

After a successful surgery and series of treatments, Paullette’s vision has improved. She is now teaching herself to knit, picking out seeds for her vegetable garden, and of course, reading about other women’s traveling adventures until her next trip.

Believed to affect approximately 41,000 people in the U.S., mCNV most commonly affects people between ages 45 and 64 – affecting women more than men.2 To learn more about the disease, see our “Understanding mCNV” infographic.



References
1 National Eye Institute. Facts About Myopia. Available at: https://nei.nih.gov/health/errors/myopia. Accessed May 19, 2016.
2 Willis J, Vitale S, et al. The Prevalence of Myopic Choroidal Neovascularization in the United States. Ophthalmology, 2016;123:1771-1782.