WOMAN, ALMOST BLIND, SOON SHOULD SEE AGAIN

ZALMA -- Until last week, Leona Butler was almost totally blind. Yet she felt her way through her daily life, even when it came to caring for her wheelchair-bound son.

Now, because of free surgery offered through a cooperative program sponsored by the state's Bureau for the Blind, she sees miraculously better, she said, and plans to do "anything and everything I want to."

A week ago Wednesday, Butler, 60, had a cataract removed that had blinded her in her left eye. Another cataract limits her vision in her right eye, but it's scheduled to be removed also.

"I'm not handicapped, except I just couldn't see," the grandmother of 24 said Monday at her home while wearing glasses with tinted lenses to guard against the light.

"I had to feel. That's the way I am. Not much gets me down. I just kind of go with the flow of the crowd, yes I do."

Dr. Maqbool Ahmad performed the surgery at The Surgery Center of Southern Illinois in Marion, which also sponsors the program called "Gift of Sight," said the Missouri Department of Social Services. A Springfield, Mo.-based eye care management firm, Med-Source Inc., makes arrangements with eye doctors to perform the needed surgery on people referred to the program by the bureau, part of the social services department.

The program, in its third year, helps needy people with serious vision problems obtain surgery they need to restore their sight.

The procedure included the insertion of a lens implant, said the marketing director for the Eye Centers of Marion and Carbondale, Gary Tisdale.

Though Butler had the cataract removed, Tisdale said, the cataract was so advanced the membrane behind it was clouded over. That problem will be fixed when a laser is used to knock a hole in the membrane to let light pass through the lens implant unobstructed.

"It's kind of like having a dirty window," Tisdale said.

The procedure, which Tisdale described as painless and only taking two or three minutes, is scheduled for Dec. 31, Butler said. Tisdale said Butler should then be able to see more clearly through her left eye, and then the other cataract will be removed soon after that.

Next to her children, Butler says getting her eyesight back is the best Christmas gift she's ever gotten. Three of Butler's eight grown children were born during the Christmas holiday season, with twins a boy and a girl being born on Christmas Eve 1955.

"It is definitely a beautiful gift. I'm grateful I was chosen. I wish everybody who has a problem like this could be," she said. "It's so frustrating not being able to see."

Butler said images appear really sharp to her now through her left eye. She also can now see colors and "white as white." Because of the cataracts, she said, she had seen white before as a yellowish color.

Having her eyesight back will help her greatly in caring for her 29-year-old son, Kelly Rogers, she said, even though her condition hadn't kept her from doing anything for him before. Rogers was injured in an auto accident in May 1982 and lives with his mother.

Once her sight is fully back, Butler said, she will try to get a full-time job. She said she would like to get some type of job she could do at her home so she can stay with her son.

Butler said she has worn glasses her entire life and that her eyes have been sensitive to sunlight, a condition some of her grandchildren also have. She said she's anxious to see if she can eventually drive without glasses. Most people she knows of who have had cataract surgery have been able to, she said.

Butler said she worked at the aluminum window firm of Advance Fabrication for 3 years until being laid off in July 1990. Now she lives only on Social Security payments, she said.

Butler said although she was developing the cataracts, she thought the problem with her eyes might have come from the paint that was sprayed on the aluminum window products at the company. She last worked at the company as a painter, she said.

When she got an eye examination two years ago, she said, the doctor told her she had cataracts.

"I kept telling myself it was that paint film. I didn't want to admit it was (cataracts) until the doctor told me."