“If she could help me, I would be happy,” the cry of a young visually impaired girl to Raquel Arbaje.

Santiago, DR.
Dahiana Rodríguez Peralta, a 23-year-old woman who suffers from keratoconus and resides in the town of El Papayo de Santiago de los Caballeros, asked for help from the First Lady of the Dominican Republic, Raquel Arbaje, to pay for glasses that would improve her vision.

Keratoconus is an ocular alteration that affects the eye’s cornea, causing sensitivity to light and blurred vision in those who suffer from it.

According to Rodriguez, her condition is due to the fact that she is allergic to dust mites, which causes her to rub her eyes constantly, an action that causes deformations in the external layer of the eye.

“If she could help me, I would be happy …. I hope she takes me into consideration, we are human, we all have problems… If it is in her hands to help me, I would be grateful,” said Rodríguez with hope.

Dahiana says that recovering her sight is very important because her situation has made it impossible for her to enter university to study a career.

She would also like to take technical courses such as accounting and computer science, learn English, and have an excellent job to support her family.

History of the condition

The young woman could see well in the first years of her life. Then, when she was 15 years old, she began to see blurry, a situation that worsened as time went by.

Despite the situation and being a family of limited resources, her mother, Laura Peralta, a mother of 4 daughters, could not take her to the doctor at that time.

In 2019, the young woman attended the José María Cabral y Báez Regional Hospital in the heart city, where she underwent examinations and saddle tests. Still, because there was no specialist in her condition, she was recommended to travel to Santo Domingo to receive the corresponding care.

At the beginning of 2020, Peralta went to the Christian Center for Medical Services (CCSM), where after being examined, she was informed that she suffered from keratoconus and that an excellent option to correct this degenerative pathology was to acquire the lenses she currently needs.

Rodriguez Peralta frequently attends medical appointments and has to pay for transportation to hospitals with the help of her mother and stepfather.

In addition, the medications prescribed to treat Peralta’s allergies cost between 600 and 800 pesos, but because of her economic situation, it has been impossible for her to consume the drugs.

About the glasses

To be able to buy them, Dahiana and Laura asked for help from several relatives, who, being in similar economic situations to theirs, were not able to contribute to the collection of money.

Additional help

Taking advantage of the conversation she had with the Listín Diario team, Laura Peralta, the mother of the young woman, asked for financial help to finish the construction of her house, which is half done.

She works cleaning a company in which she receives a salary of 12,000 pesos, a figure which, in her words, makes it impossible for her to support her daughters Isaura, Yamirka, Maria Esther Sanchez, and Dahiana Rodriguez in the way she wishes.

“I would be happy if she could achieve this project that we have wanted to do for so long,” she said with illusion while smiling.