See the Good in St. Louis LASIK Giveaway Keri W.
Keri W.
Age: 33
Hometown: Marthasville, MO
Occupation: Speech Therapist
Nominated by: Her friend Trina B. who writes “I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this gift than my friend Keri. She is a mother of 3 incredible children and works full time as a pediatric speech language pathologist in an early childhood setting. She spends her days helping young children gain confidence and independence through communication. For many small children, working on expanding their language or improving their speech sounds can be incredibly difficult and is often not a preferred activity, but not with Keri. One of Keri’s passions at work is helping children with severe autism. Many children with autism have little to no language at all, which is incredibly frustrating for them and their families as they are unable to communicate their wants and needs. Keri works to help these children communicate in other ways, whether it be a picture exchange system or using a voice output system.
She is kind, compassionate and is always putting others before herself. She balances being a mother of three (Gracie, 4 years old and twins Clark and Eve, 18 months old), working full time, and completing an additional master’s degree, all while managing her own health issues. One of Keri’s daily struggles is dry eye. Keri currently alternates between wearing her glasses or daily contacts. Although the glasses help to alleviate some of the discomfort of her dry eyes, it is often difficult to wear them at work with the mask causing foggy lenses and small children trying to take them off her face. LASIK would be life changing for Keri.”
Background: Keri first started wearing glasses when she was 11 years old and in middle school. She was embarrassed by them and would do everything in her power not to wear them, even hiding them from her mom in her book bag, until she realized it was affecting her performance in school.
Keri has always struggled with wearing contacts even after working with many optometrists to get the appropriate fit, they just don’t seem to work for her. So, recently she’s tried to wear glasses more frequently. With the COVID-19 pandemic, wearing glasses has created new challenges, like having them frequently fog up. Working with autistic children, Keri knows big reactions can be common-place. Recently, her glasses were grabbed by one of the children and thrown across the room. She has also had her glasses knocked off her face and while she tries not to let these incidences distract her from teaching the children, not having glasses in the first place would be ideal.
Keri admits she faces difficulty with having glasses at home with three children under age five who love to have their hands in her face. On more than one occasion her glasses have ended up in places they shouldn’t be and she’s ready for a change.
For Keri, having LASIK would reduce the financial burden of not having to buy so many different pairs of contacts and glasses to ensure she always has the vision help she needs at a moment’s notice. She feels vision correction surgery would be “freeing” to have one less thing to have to worry about each day so she could focus more time on the children she serves at school and at home.
* The information shared by the See the Good finalists or the person nominating them cannot be fully factually verified by Brinton Vision and is the sole responsibility of the person stating the information.