Bobbie Wayne (Cornea Recipient)

In Bobbie’s life, she has been a lot of things: Nashville songwriter, portrait painter, writer, graphic artist, caricature drawer, wooden puppet maker, proud pet owner to a border collie, and a talented harp player. Still, she never thought that she would be the recipient of a cornea, let alone two. 

Bobbie had been diagnosed with Fuchs’ Dystrophy, a corneal disease where fluid fills your cornea, causing it to swell and thicken. It can lead to a gradual decrease in vision and an eventual need for a corneal transplant. In Bobbie’s case, her vision was slowly worsening over a period of many years. It only really became unmanageable about a year before she underwent surgery. 

With more day-to-day tasks, like using the computer, her face had to be inches away from the screen. But with some of her more personal passions, like the harp, which Bobbie had grown to be proficient in had now become a challenge. Bobbie was struggling to play her harp, as the ability to see the strings and gauge the distances between each one, crucial to playing the instrument, was becoming impossible. At one point, Bobbie’s vision got so bad that when composing and writing her notes, all she could see were undistinguishable lines.

Along with the struggle of losing the ability to do her favorite things and her profession comfortably, Bobbie ended up needing to get glasses (which she would lose constantly). In her own words, “In my case, it just was becoming faster and faster, a handicap, and I could see where this was going to go. I was not a happy camper”.

Bobbie’s story changed after her doctor said that it was time to consider surgery, and with the generous gift of a donor and their family.

Bobbie is grateful to have her sight restored and she is looking forward to being able to play the harp again without her glasses. She is also aware that from now on, as she would tell you,  “I’m carrying around two other people with me on my life journey…and that those people are going to live on through me. My life is better through them. I am now a person of three.” She feels that now she has a responsibility to be a better person who is deserving of this gift that was given to her. Because of this life-changing gift, Bobbie is now a registered donor and an advocate for organ, eye and tissue donation. And her message to others? Bobbie says, “Expect miracles. If you expect people to do incredible things for each other, they very often will.”