Scene at the Sinwa camp as formerly blind patients begin to walk unassisted. David Oliver Relin, 2010
Patients and their family members walking home from the Rasuwa camp. David Oliver Relin, 2008
The Tabin family at Geoff’s 1978 Yale graduation. From the left: Julius, Geoff, Cliff, Johanna, and Geoff’s maternal grandmother, Sara Krout. Geoff Tabin, 1978
Tabin captained the Yale tennis team his junior and senior years. Geoff Tabin, circa 1977
Tabin on the summit of Mount Everest, October 2, 1988. Geoff Tabin, 1988
Sanduk Ruit with his friend and supporter Fred Hollows. Rex Shore, courtesy of the Fred Hollows Foundation, 1990
Ruit in Mustang, Nepal, elated that his patients’ surgeries were successful. Michael Amendolia, 1992
Ruit pausing between patients in the shiny new operating theater of the HCP-supported Hetauda Community Eye Hospital. David Oliver Relin, 2008
The original Tilganga, which was built in a modular fashion so extra floors could be added as needed. David Oliver Relin, 2008
The new Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology, on the right, connected to the original Tilganga, on the left. Himalayan Cataract Project, 2009
Technicians at the Fred Hollows Intraocular Lens Laboratory, manufacturing lenses to exacting standards. David Oliver Relin, 2008
Patients and family members gathered at the Quiha Zonal Hospital, Ethiopia. David Oliver Relin, 2009
Tabin, surrounded by some of the cataract patients who were operated on at Quiha Zonal Hospital the previous day. David Oliver Relin, 2009
Ten-year-old Temesgen thanks Dr. Alan Crandall for restoring his sight at the Quiha Zonal Hospital. David Oliver Relin, 2009
Tabin, after performing a cornea transplant on Francis Kiiza, at the King Faisal Hospital, in Kigali, Rwanda. David Oliver Relin, 2009
Tabin, center, and John Nkurikiye, right, showing a video of cataract surgery to Rwandan officials, including Prime Minister Bernard Makuza, on the left. Ace Kvale, 2009
Eminante Uzamukunda returning home after her successful cataract surgery at the Nyamata hospital. David Oliver Relin, 2009
Dr. Kunzang Getshen, wearing the traditional Bhutanese gho, at the Phuentsholing General Hospital, in the town his father helped to build. David Oliver Relin, 2009
Dr. Dechen Wangmo, after operating on her aunt at Bhutan’s National Referral Hospital in the capital, Thimphu. David Oliver Relin, 2009
The ceremony honoring Dr. Ruit’s career, at a restored palace in Patan. From the left: Ruit’s father, Sonam; Ruit; his wife, Nanda; his daughters, Serabla and Satenla; and an official of the Nepal Ophthalmic Society. Ruit’s son, Sagar, was away at college. David Oliver Relin, 2008
Relin receiving a blessing from the Fourth Jamgon Kongtrul at his monastery in Lava, India. David Oliver Relin, 2009
Relin and Apa Sherpa visit Apa’s home village of Thame. David Oliver Relin, 2008
Ruit and Tabin, trekking on the trail toward the Sinwa surgical camp. David Oliver Relin, 2010
Ruit and his daughter Satenla—draped with katas from grateful patients—setting out on the trek to Olangchungola, Ruit’s home village. David Oliver Relin, 2010
Author’s Note
Some books you want to write. Others you have to write. The book you’re holding falls into the second category. When I went to Nepal in the spring of 2008, it was with the notion of writing about a Sherpa mountain climber. But at the insistence of Geoff Tabin, I traveled with his partner Sanduk Ruit to a rural village in Nepal, where I watched the elegant method—and remarkable results—of Ruit’s sight-restoring surgeries. There, I had the privilege of watching patients, many of whom had been blind for years, not only regaining their sight but also their chance to live fulfilling lives. I found the experience emotionally overwhelming. So, on that April day in the mid-hills of Nepal, my life changed course and I began this book.
Since then, as I’ve worked to report and write the story of Drs. Ruit and Tabin, I’ve come to see their shared effort to eradicate much of the world’s preventable blindness as one of the most meaningful ways anyone I know is able to spend their time on earth. I admire these men and their mission, and they’ve been good company during our shared effort to bring this book to life. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t found both Ruit and Tabin, at times, frustrating. Tabin can be hyperbolic and hyperactive. Ruit is occasionally moody and aloof. I mention these qualities to make it clear that these men are far from perfect. I believe that makes their accomplishments all the more impressive.
Each of these doctors could have chosen more financially rewarding lives. That’s one of the reasons I decided that a portion of my proceeds from this book should go directly to Ruit and Tabin. So is the fact that Ruit and Tabin have not just been the subjects of this book, they have been active participants in the four-year process of creating it. They’ve each done dozens of interviews, read drafts, and offered corrections and suggestions.
What I respect most about Ruit and Tabin is the decision they both made to stray far from more comfortable careers to focus on one of the world’s great, correctable injustices: Of the approximately 160 million blind and severely visually disabled people on the planet, roughly three-quarters of them could easily be cured if they had access to modern medicine. Let me repeat that: Three out of four of them can’t see because they’re not being offered the same quality medical care people in wealthy countries consider their birthright. That’s why the organization Ruit and Tabin founded, the Himalayan Cataract Project (www.cureblindness.org), has concentrated on refining and delivering a simple surgical procedure capable of curing millions of cataract patients for about twenty dollars each. And that’s why they’ve been working for decades to bring the best quality care to some of the world’s neediest communities. As I’ve found, that often means carrying mobile field hospitals on weeklong treks into the hills of Nepal, or traveling wherever their services are needed. Additionally, Ruit, Tabin, and their colleagues at the HCP have made a point of raising surgical standards everywhere they work, and have trained and equipped hundreds of local doctors, nurses, and technicians to perform sight-restoring surgeries without Ruit, Tabin, or other HCP staff present.
Though this is Ruit and Tabin’s story, and this book focuses on their efforts, they are far from alone in their quest. There are many other worthy organizations, including the Aravind Eye Care System, the Fred Hollows Foundation, ORBIS International, the Seva Foundation, and Sightlife, working to eradicate preventable blindness worldwide, organizations that have often partnered with the HCP. Likewise, there are a number of scenes in Second Suns where I have chosen not to describe other people who were present. Again, my intention was to keep Ruit and Tabin front and center.
In the course of reporting this book, I took eleven separate trips to interview them, research their histories, watch them work, and assist medically in whatever way my limited skills allowed. I’ve bounced on tooth-rattling twenty-hour Jeep rides across the eastern Himalaya. I’ve observed Tabin operating with the latest technology in Salt Lake City. I’ve worked in rural Ethiopian and Rwandan hospitals. And I’ve trekked with Ruit and Tabin into Nepal’s endless ranges, struggling to keep up with these two exasperatingly inexhaustible men.
Like its subjects, the story I tell in Second Suns is sure to have flaws. Though I traveled with Ruit and Tabin extensively and saw their work with my own eyes, much of this book must rely on the memories of two fifty-something men who have conducted hundreds of mobile surgical camps. There are days I can’t remember what I had for breakfast, yet I’ve asked Ruit and Tabin to recall and reconstruct scenes from their childhoods, twenty-year-old encounters with particular patients, the complex process of building a charitable organization, and the nuts and bolts of decades of doctoring. Along the way, it’s inevitable that I’ve gotten some of the sequences of events scrambled, and some of the details wrong. I did, however, hire a professional fact-checker, had him interview as many of the people who populate this book a
s possible, and traveled to Nepal with him to clarify many details of this story. I’m confident that even if I haven’t been able to describe more than fifty years of Ruit’s and Tabin’s lives with absolute precision, I’ve been able to get the heart of their story correct—that these two men have made an enormous, measurable difference in alleviating suffering. I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading about them as much as I’ve enjoyed telling their tale.
DAVID OLIVER RELIN
Portland, Oregon
To Dawn, who brightens my days
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Sanduk Ruit and Geoff Tabin, for allowing me to follow them and their work across three continents, for enduring my endless questions, and for remaining (mostly) polite and patient over the course of the four years it took to write and report this book. Thanks also to the Ruit and Tabin families, for inviting me into your homes and lives. And a special thanks to Cliff Tabin, a visionary scientist in his own right, for modestly keeping the focus of our conversations on the achievements of his little brother, as well as to Serabla and Satenla Ruit, for their skillful and sensitive interpretation at surgical camps.
In Nepal, I’d like to thank Reeta Gurung, Beena Sharma, Rex Shore, and Rabindra Shrestha, as well as the Tilganga board members for sharing the story of how Tilganga was created. Former Australian ambassador to Nepal Les Douglas was particularly eloquent as he reminisced about helping Tilganga find its footing.
Also in Nepal, Bal Sunder Chansi, Rajluxmi Golchha, Khem Gurung, Ajeev Thapa, Krishna Thapa, and Shanka Twyna all gave me a window into the challenging process of creating world-class eye care in a poor country, as well as helped me to understand the obstacles Tilganga and the HCP faced, and the triumphs they achieved, as they grew into mature institutions. My apologies to anyone else in Nepal I’ve forgotten to mention here.
At Salt Lake City’s John A. Moran Eye Center, CEO Randy Olson and his talented physicians, nurses, and technicians showed me just how well ophthalmology can be practiced when a wealth of resources and cutting-edge technology are combined with a staff that cares deeply about the quality of its work.
Thanks to Job Heintz and Emily Newick at the HCP for helping to explain how they and their small, overworked staff have been able to turn Sanduk Ruit and Geoff Tabin’s outsized dreams into grounded brick-and-mortar reality. (For more information about the HCP go to www.cureblindness.org).
In Australia, I want to thank Brian Doolan, Virginia Sarah, Gabi Hollows, and all the people at the amazing Fred Hollows Foundation for helping me to understand the bond between the late Dr. Hollows and Dr. Ruit, and the enormous impact their shared vision has had on people who live where resources are scarce.
Thanks to Mulu Mohari, skilled driver, and even more talented raconteur, for delivering a primer on proud Ethiopian culture and for leading me to perhaps the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had. I’m also grateful to Dr. Tilahun Meshesha for making me feel so welcome in Quiha hospital and, more generally, the Tigray Region of Ethiopia.
I’m amazed and grateful not only for the hospitality John Nkurikiye showed me in Rwanda, but for his gentle but firm tutelage about his country’s history. I also want to thank Charles Kayonga, commander of Rwanda’s Land Forces at the time of my visit, both for sharing his painful memories of Rwanda’s recent past and for his unbridled optimism about its future. To Francis Kiiza, thanks not only for lending me the use of your remarkable English but also for serving as my interpreter just days after your own corneal transplant surgery.
Where to begin in Bhutan? Thanks to the Queen Mother and her son Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the Fourth Dragon King, for hosting our visit, feeding me an exotic and delicious wild orchid salad, discussing the process of Bhutan’s cautiously opening up to the world, and having the foresight and wisdom to invite the HCP into your small but strikingly beautiful country. To Dechen Wangmo, and all the fiercely dedicated ophthalmic staff of Bhutan, my gratitude for your hospitality and patience with a foreigner’s curiosity about your customs. And to Kunzang Getshen, thanks for a crash course on Bhutanese history and culture and for your help finding, and swathing me in, a gho appropriate for a royal audience.
In Kalimpong and Sikkim, thanks to Dr. Sona Yonjo and Dr. B. P. Dhakal for helping me to understand the occasionally reticent Dr. Ruit a bit better. And to Thinlay Ngodup, and the children and elders of the Jamgon Kongtrul the Third Memorial Home, thanks for showing me the remarkable symbiotic relationship that can develop when the very young and the very old are encouraged to ease each other’s burdens.
My gratitude to his Eminence the Fourth Jamgon Kongtrul, for explaining the rigorous training necessary to become a leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Thanks also to Tenzeng Dorjee for sharing the painful remembrance of the Third Jamgon Kongtrul’s untimely death as well as information about his foundation’s continued charitable work. Thanks also to Tenzin Yongdu, formerly known as Harold Rolls, the visionary architect who built the Rigpe Dorje center at the Pullahari Monastery and guided me through that memorable structure.
Thanks to mountaineers Neil Beidleman, Ace Kvale, George Lowe, Andrew McLean, Jim Morrissey, Timmy O’Neill, Lou Reichardt, Bob Shapiro, and Apa Sherpa, for helping me grasp what lengths of rope and hazardous routes Geoff Tabin has traveled to keep his “fun-o-meter” regularly peaking in the red.
To the world-class academic ophthalmologists David Chang, Alan Crandall, Al Sommer, and Hugh Taylor, profound gratitude for guiding me toward at least a basic understanding of the complexities and challenges of treating the world’s needlessly blind.
I’d also like to thank my agent, Jin Auh, for the wisdom, support, and all-around good-eggness she demonstrated during the long process of bringing this book to press. Thanks also to Tom Colligan for his calm and thorough approach to research and fact-checking. Susan Kamil, publisher at Random House, embodied the passion that still remains in the publishing business for nurturing great books and sharing them with readers. My editor, Andy Ward, single-handedly refuted the notion that editors don’t edit anymore. His energy, attention to detail, and determination, line by line, draft after draft, to make Second Suns as good as it could be, were all extraordinary.
And most of all, thanks to Dawn, whose unwavering support and belief made writing Second Suns possible.
DAVID OLIVER RELIN
ALSO BY DAVID OLIVER RELIN
Three Cups of Tea (with Greg Mortenson)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAVID OLIVER RELIN is the co-author of the number one New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea, which has been translated into more than two dozen languages. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Kiriyama Prize and a James Michener Fellowship. Relin died in 2012.
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