Dennis Gannon, Retina Patient
“A grand recovery”
The streets lined with boisterous tourists and locals, a green river cutting through downtown and the usual overcast sky signified that it was another year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade in downtown Chicago. As parade watchers enjoyed the colorful floats and noisy bag pipes, they had no way of knowing that 2008’s grand marshal, Dennis Gannon, had undergone surgery for a retinal detachment just four days before.
The president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, the central labor body for the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations), Gannon had noticed he was losing his peripheral vision in his right eye but had been out of town for awhile. On the Tuesday afternoon before the parade, he made an appointment with the cornea specialist he had been seeing, Dr. Joel Sugar, to investigate his problem. From there, events moved quickly when Dr. Sugar brought in Dr. Michael P. Blair, for a consult. Dr. Blair quickly determined that Gannon had a detached retina, which needed to be operated on that evening—a check-up at 2:30 p.m. had progressed to surgery at 6 p.m.
“I was relatively comfortable throughout the whole process,” says Gannon, 54-years-old. “My only discomfort was from not being able to see before. If I hadn’t gone in to see Dr. Sugar, I could have gone blind. I believe these folks saved my vision.”
Gannon notes that the gravity of his diagnosis made his situation tense at times. But he says the quality of care provided by the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary was “outstanding.” He says that Dr. Sugar and Blair were professional in explaining his problem, treatment and the needed procedure.
According to Dr. Blair, Gannon had a good result, which would be expected, but is not always the case. “The speed of his recovery, both visual and in being able to be up and about, are more unusual,” he says. “The speed is due to a newer entry technique into the eye to perform surgery, which is gaining popularity around the country.”
After Gannon’s surgery, his vision has continued to return more every day. “We take a lot of things for granted, and our vision is one of them,” he says. “But when my vision was in jeopardy, I couldn’t have been in more capable hands than Dr. Sugar and Blair.”
by Megan Pellegrini
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