BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — Surviving was a miracle, but seeing again after a crazed knife attack left Julissa Marquez blind in both eyes was something only she believed was possible.
“I keep telling everybody, even from when I had no vision, 'You’ll see, I’m going to see again,'” the Bed-Stuy mom told DNAinfo New York.
“You move forward, you keep looking forward, you never look back."
Three years ago, Marquez's boyfriend turned up at her home naked, ranting and threatening to harm her 12-year-old son.
She blocked his path, protecting her son by enduring an horrific attack with a kitchen knife that left her apartment soaked in blood and her completely blind in both eyes.
But, nearly three years later, Marquez, 35, from Bed-Stuy, has regained about 30 percent of her vision — a feat even her doctors thought extremely unlikely.
The brutal attack left her with multiple wounds in her head, face, neck and thigh. The first thrust of the knife entered her forehead and split her left eye nearly in half, according to Marquez and her doctor.
“He just kept stabbing away. At the time I didn’t feel none of it... All I felt was the blood dripping, and it was so warm,” she said.
"YOU'LL HAVE TO KILL ME," SHE THOUGHT, AS HER ATTACKER THREATENED HER SON
Miguel Cordero, who Marquez had met in church two years prior to the attack and had been dating for about three months, showed up at her apartment on the night of Dec. 10, 2013 naked, “confused” and “dazed,” she said.
After she tried to calm him down, he began to fight with her, threatening to kill her son who was in the next room, she said.
“I didn’t even have time to think. I just threw myself between him and the door and that was when the fight really began,” Marquez said.
“Of course, I was losing, but it was kind of like, ‘Over my dead body are you going to touch my son. You literally have to kill me to get to him.'”
Cordero grabbed a knife and started to stab her. Video following the incident shows a trail of blood left behind on the floor and along the walls as Marquez tried to get away.
“I still had fight in me…I was able to take the knife away from him… I had already lost sight in this [left] eye, but I still had my right eye, so walking to my front door, right when I was walking, I lost sight in my right eye.”
AS SHE WAS BEING CHOKED, MARQUEZ FORGAVE HER ATTACKER
As Cordero choked her, Marquez said she made a conscious choice to forgive him.
“I didn’t know if I was going to make it, you know? I did scream out for Jesus to forgive him and I told him, I screamed it out so he could hear me, my voice was already hoarse,” she recalled.
“I told him, ‘I forgive you,’ and I just remember saying ‘Jesus, if this is my time, come and take me.’ And the door opens,” she said, remembering as police rushed into the apartment, led by her pastor who she had called before the attack turned violent.
Cordero pleaded not responsible by reason of mental disease in 2014 and was placed in a secure forensic psychiatric facility, where he’ll remain indefinitely, sources said.
After surgery at Kings County Hospital, Marquez was referred to Dr. Ronald C. Gentile, chief of ocular trauma service at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, who took on her case and performed a series of retina surgeries.
“She was totally blind, she couldn’t see anything. At one point, she couldn’t even make out light or dark,” he said.
Marquez was stabbed in both eyes, he said. In her left eye, the laceration was more than 20 millimeters. The eye is only 24 millimeters wide, Gentile added.
“Her chances were probably over 90 percent she wouldn’t see again…. even a 1 millimeter injury to an eyeball can be devastating. That’s why people were saying there’s no hope here.”
AGAINST OVERWHELMING ODDS, MARQUEZ'S SIGHT BEGAN TO RETURN
Marquez underwent about 12 surgeries to her eyes from 2013 to 2015, she said.
“I started seeing light, out of the right eye, and shadows. It was like, ‘Oh my God,’” Marquez said.
“I cried. And it’s just funny, but I was kind of ready for that. I always tell people, watch, mark my words, because it’s going to happen.”
Following weekly appointments with her doctor, her vision in her right eye began to improve, to the point where she can now watch TV and use her iPad and read letters, though items need to be held up high and close to her face.
“I just see things blurry, that’s all, but I can still make it out, I just can’t measure. I bump into a lot of stuff,” she said with a laugh.
Through her left eye, her vision is limited and slanted. Surgeries also corrected the eyeball’s position, as it was turning in its socket.
“I’m going to see more than this and I’m going to get my left eye back,” Marquez said.
“The best patients are the patients that feel like the glass is half-full,” Gentile said of Marquez.
“She looks at life very differently now.”
Marquez now wears glasses and doctors are on the lookout for ways to further improve her vision, including through regenerative medicine or advances in visual aides.
Her daily routine has changed drastically and, though it’s not easy, she said she tries to be as independent as possible.
She uses a walking stick and a home attendant helps with everyday tasks such as grocery shopping, cleaning or going outside.
“I really am happy, I’m okay. I’ve made peace with this because I know I’m not going to stay like this. I know,” she said.
Since she suffers from allergies, Marquez needs to blow her nose, cough and sneeze a certain way as to not affect her eyes, which are also sensitive to the heat, cold, wind and water.
“Of course, I have to live,” she said. “I don’t do that victim stuff, I’m not a victim, I survived.
“I don’t limit myself. Again, life goes on. It may not be the same, but the point is you make the best of it. The light is that way — you move towards the light."
