BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — More than three years after she lost her eyesight in a brutal stabbing attack in her home, Julissa Marquez is getting her life back.
With the help of a high-tech sight aid, the 35-year-old Bed-Stuy resident — who was rendered totally blind in the Dec. 2013 attack — is now able to take care of tasks such as laundry, cooking, and grocery shopping, despite doctors once believing that she might never even be able to see again.
Marquez was left in total darkness in the wake of the attack, but exceeded the expectations of doctors by regaining much of her vision in her right eye. But even as her recovery raced ahead of doctors’ predictions, Marquez still suffered from severe blurriness and slanted vision in her left eye.
She's still legally blind, and needs a walking stick to navigate outside. But now, with the help of ESight, a sight-aid headset that uses lenses to automatically correct her eyesight, magnify her field of vision, and adjust the contrast, she’s approaching 20/20 vision. That means with the device she’s able to watch television, read, and most importantly, see her 16-year-old son clearly.
“I’m able to wash clothes, I can shop, when I’m outside I’m actually able to walk on my own,” she said at a checkup Tuesday. “I can help my son with homework, and take care of my bills. Believe it or not, even without the glasses I am seeing better.”
At another recent checkup, Marquez managed to score 20/20 vision in one test using the headset, according to her Ronald Gentile, retina surgeon at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai who has been instrumental in Marquez’s ongoing recovery.
“We were shocked,” he said. “With the severity of her injuries, the chances of her getting to this point were less than three percent.”
“Even I was shocked!” Marquez chimed in.
Ronald Gentile examines Julissa Marquez.
It’s the latest unexpected development in a road to recovery that has included many joyful surprises.
Marquez’s ordeal began on Dec. 10 when her boyfriend, Miguel Cordero, whom she had been dating for about three months, showed up at her apartment naked, “confused” and “dazed,” Marquez said. She tried to calm him down, but he became more agitated and began ranting and threatening to harm her son, who was 12 at the time, in the next room.
Marquez, who had met Cordero at church about two years prior, tried to calm him down and used her body to block him from getting to her son in the next room, but he grabbed a kitchen knife from the counter and began stabbing her repeatedly. By the time the altercation was over she had stab wounds to her head, face, neck, and thigh, and her left eye had been nearly split in two.
During the attack, Marquez cried out her forgiveness of Cordero, even as he was choking the life out of her. But before he could finish what he started, police burst into the apartment behind Marquez’s pastor, whom she had called when Cordero first arrived.
Cordero eventually pleaded not guilty by reason of mental illness in 2014, and he continues to be held at a secure facility indefinitely, according to a spokesman for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.
Marquez was grateful to be alive, but the attack left her completely blind. In the months that followed she lived in darkness, unable to see anything, even the difference between light and dark. As her son grew older, she had to feel his face for changes, feeling his first scruffs of facial hair instead of seeing it, she said.
She had to learn how to get around and get by without sight, and doctors warned her she would likely not be able to see again. But ever so gradually, as she underwent about 12 surgeries between 2013 and 2015, her sight became to return, slowly at first, and she began to pick up light and shadows once more.
The first time her bandages came off to reveal a slight improvement, she said she wept and thanked God.
“Because they told me I was never going to see again, it was a beautiful surprise,” she said.
By August of 2016, she was able to watch television, use her iPad, and read letters, but sight out of her left eye, which bore the brunt of the damage, was still slanted and she had to hold items close to her face in order to see them.
In October, she began using the ESight headset, which allows her to magnify objects in the distance and change the color and contrast of her field of vision, eliminating glare and maximize her vision using video screens inside the device. It made an immediate difference, she said.
“Me and my son have a very strong bond, and when I was in the darkness I couldn’t see how my son was growing up, trying to feel his face and imagine what he looked like,” she said. “Now I know that when my son gets married I’ll be able to see it. When he has his children I’ll be able to see them.”
Now, doctors are carefully watching her progress, according to Gentile, who said much of his patient’s progress can be chalked up to her own perseverance.
“She’s had a lot of procedures done to rehabilitate her eyesight, so now we’re making sure nothing happens to jeopardize her vision,” he said. “She’s achieving at the top percentile of patients with similar issues, and I think a lot of this has to do with her and her ability to maximize the vision she has.”
Ronald Gentile and Julissa Marquez
The headset has its limitations. It takes about a minute for Marquez and her health aid, Albina Marte, to attach it, and when she moves her head Marquez said the device has a brief lag, making it so her vision doesn’t track the movement of her head seamlessly.
But she’s practicing walking around using the headset, and Gentile said her abilities will improve as technology advances.
“She’s able to watch TV, she’s able to see her son, and these are things she wasn't able to do using our conventional treatment. Without using this technology we couldn’t get to that point, and I think this is just a glimpse into her future and what she’s going to be able to do.”
Marquez said she’s looking forward to her life expanding along with her vision, including an upcoming visit to her mother in Puerto Rico.
“I will be able to see fully again,” she said. “Little by little I’m getting better.”
