Pat McIntosh lives a busy life in Dunkerton, Iowa.
She lives on a farm that has been in her husband James’ family for seven generations, growing corn, beans, and hay, and raising beef cows. McIntosh has lived on the farm for 43 years and raises hogs and sheep for show as well.
“My father was a FFA advisor, and I grew up around farming,” McIntosh says. “I had horses as a kid, and I have horses now too.”
In addition to her busy life on the farm, McIntosh owns a flower shop in Jesup and has an art studio in Dunkerton where she teaches acrylic and watercolor painting.
McIntosh also spends a lot of time with her children and grandchildren, and helps one of her sons, coaching softball at the local high school.
But this past year, the girls on the softball team knew they had better not throw balls at her. That’s because her vision was failing due to a genetic visual disorder called Fuchs Dystrophy.
“It was like living in a fog every day,” McIntosh says. “Looking at light made it worse. A lot of things other people did I would just avoid it if I knew my eyesight would be worse.”
McIntosh says she knew she would have to have a cornea transplant. Her mother, who is 86, has had to have six corneal transplants.
“My mom kept saying what it was going to be like, and I was like no, mom, that’s not how they do it anymore,” McIntosh says. “It’s light years different from when my mom had hers done.”
Over the past 20 years, advances in corneal transplantation have allowed for the partial replacement of the cornea, which has five layers. McIntosh and many others who have Fuchs Dystrophy now undergo what is called a Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty, or DMEK, which replaces just two of the cornea layers instead of all five. The process allows for faster healing times and lessens the risk that the operation will need to be repeated.
McIntosh had her transplants in March and May in Hiawatha. McIntosh is back to driving her children and grandchildren around and was able to drive around the Des Moines area during this year’s Iowa State Fair.
“Our vacation is to go to the Iowa State Fair,” McIntosh says. “We work like crazy the whole time we’re there, but that’s our vacation, for the whole entire family.”
This softball season, she could see the ball coming in and could throw the ball in to play.
“I had to still put drops in my eyes, and as soon as the alarm went off, the players would yell, ‘Pat, go put in your drops!’ I am still putting drops in, and the goal is to reduce to two drops a day by Thanksgiving, and next March down to 1 drop. Our goal is to be down to zero drops,” McIntosh says.
McIntosh says she is so grateful to her cornea donors.
“The hardest thing you have to do as a recipient is write a letter to people when you’re excited about your own future, and know they just lost somebody,” McIntosh says.