BEAVER SPRINGS — Though legally blind, friends and veterans Jim Rigel, of Beaver Springs, and Jim Howell, of Middleburg, see how to meet a need better than most.

From reading their daily mail, signing papers and even shopping and using a tape measure, they have learned to live a quality life with a little help from a special program offered at the Lebanon Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

“It’s worth every minute that you’re there,” Howell said of the 10-day program, called VISOR (Visual Impairment Services Outpatient Rehabilitation), which provides training, rehabilitation and prosthetics for veterans with low vision. “It turned my lifestyle around.”

Howell, who served in the Air Corps from 1942 to 1946, suffers from glaucoma, which he said had become so bad that his mail sat on his dining room table until one of his sons could come to sort through it. The operations he received at Johns Hopkins 15 years earlier helped for a while, but the pressure began building again, and there was nothing more that could be done.

“I absolutely could not read a word anymore by the time I went down there,” Howell said.

And he thanks his friend for urging him to attend the program. “He talked me into it,” Howell said of Rigel.

Dealing with macular degeneration, and being legally blind in one eye, Rigel, who served in the Air Force from 1948 to 1952, was looking for something that would make his life easier and would allow him to be a little more independent when he learned of the VISOR program. In 2006, he spent 10 days at the Lebanon VA Medical Center, where he attended classes to learn how to use the equipment he would be taking home with him.

The equipment, federally funded through the Veterans Affairs office, includes magnifying glasses, binoculars, a talking tape measure, templates for letter writing, raised decals for finding buttons on appliances, a portable electronic magnifier called Nemo and a large closed-circuit television magnifier called MagniSight.

After his training and returning home with his equipment, Rigel became an advocate for the program. “I know there are people out there that can use this program,” he said.

Rigel called Howell one day, and asked him what he was up to.

“Just sitting here like I always do,” Howell replied.

And then Rigel invited him over to check out his VISOR equipment. “He didn’t want to go home,” Rigel said with a laugh.

Howell later decided he would attend the program, and Rigel helped him through the application process. Howell began his journey in 2008.

At first, Howell was discouraged with the experience, because the staff kept supplying magnifying glasses for him to use, but he still could not see anything through them. And then they gave him a Nemo, the portable video magnifier. “The print just jumped up,” he said. That’s when his spirits lifted. “I said, ‘I’m staying at this program. I can read again!’ ”

“When you discover how much they can help you, you’re determined to go on,” Howell added. He previously had obtained hearing aids from a VA audiologist. “Courtesy of Uncle Sam,” he said. “They were just marvelous.”

“They feed you, give you all the equipment,” Rigel said. “It costs you the trip there.”

The experience has strengthened their friendship, which began in the early 1950s. Rigel graduated from high school in the Midd-West School District when Howell began teaching at the Beaver Vocational High School. Later, when Howell became a school principal in the district, Rigel was the district’s maintenance man.

Their working relationship was always a good one.

“I don’t think we ever had a cross word between us,” Howell said.

The VISOR program is available at the Lebanon VA Medical Center to any veteran, enrolled in the VA Healthcare System, who meets the definition of low vision, meaning their problems cannot be fixed with medication, surgery or regular glasses, said Nancy Strohm, service chief of VISOR.

Lebanon was the first center to offer the program. There now are 13 centers offering the program nationwide. Blind rehabilitation programs began in 1948 in response to increasing demand caused by war-related injuries after World War II. Later, age-related vision problems were recognized in veterans as well. Age-related macular degeneration is the most common vision problem at the center. Since 2000, the VISOR program has graduated 346 veterans.

The program in Lebanon, which began in 2000, assists about 400 veterans each year and is funded through the National Prosthetics Service. It is cost-free for veterans.

Information about VISOR is available by calling (800) 409-8771, ext. 4940.



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Valley clinic could open soon

WILKES-BARRE — The new Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Snyder County could be open in a matter of months, two officials said.

Snyder County VA Director Roger L. Snook and Northumberland County VA Director Sherri Scholl got a report on the center during a VA Advisory Council meeting they attended last week in Wilkes-Barre. They were told the decision about the location of the center will be made soon.

The deadline to submit proposals to the VA for operating the Snyder County clinic was Dec. 12. Eligible primary care offices must be in Snyder County or within five miles of its borders.

Evangelical Community Hospital officials said they planned to seek the contract to offer the clinic services, and Sunbury Community Hospital officials said in December they had obtained the documents and were considering whether to apply.

According to the VA’s contract regarding the clinic in Snyder County, there are 9,361 Veterans Affairs enrollees living in Juniata, Northumberland and Union counties, with 5,608 receiving help from the Wilkes-Barre VA Medical Center or a community-based outpatient clinic. Living in Snyder County are 265 veterans who use the VA health care system, combining for 682 primary-care visits from October 2006 to 2008.

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