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Man grateful for sight, health this Christmas
By Anthony McConnell
This document was published online on Friday, December 26, 2008
Jim Marmon survived a storm few people will ever experience.
It wasn’t a blizzard or tornado “ in fact, the Cody man survived a storm stronger than anything Mother Nature could muster “ a thyroid storm.
It almost killed him last year and at one point left him nearly blind.
“I’ve seen a few thyroid storms, but I’ve never seen one this rapid,” said Dian True, the diabetes education coordinator for Billings Clinic Cody, adding that most take three months to reach the point Marmon’s did in one week.
“I was a mechanic at BearCo and started getting double vision,” Marmon recalled. “I couldn’t figure out what was going on.”
He went to optometrist Terry Cole and was then referred to ophthalmologist Dr. Barry Welch, who diagnosed Marmon, 53, with Graves disease, an autoimmune disorder that affects antibodies.
“It put his body in a war with itself,” True said, adding that if severe enough and untreated it could lead to death.
“It swelled the muscles behind my eyes and essentially tried to pop them out of my head,” Marmon said.
If that wasn’t bad enough the thyroid storm threw his blood sugar out of order and triggered his diabetes, nearly killing him. In addition, his vision degraded to the point that he could only see three colors in his right eye and two out of his left, leaving him nearly blind.
He needed immediate ocular decompression surgery.
“They basically go in and dig out everything behind your eyeball,” Marmon said.
The closest place he could get the surgery was Salt Lake City. But short on money and without insurance there was no way he could afford the trip, let alone the surgery, which cost more than $10,000 per eye.
That’s where the Lions Club came in.
“If I didn’t get immediate surgery I wasn’t going to make it,” Marmon says. “Dr. Welch knew about the Lions’ program and put me in touch with Dian.”
True, who coordinates the Lions Club’s Diabetes Eye Care Project for Billings Clinic, contacted the Lions.
“Don Livingston and two other board members came to my house to interview me,” Marmon recalled. “They looked at me and it took them about a minute to decide to help.”
The Lions provided funding for not only the surgery, but also helped with transportation costs to Salt Lake.
“Don wrote a personal check for the gas to get me down there and back,” Marmon said.
That was three surgeries and 18 months ago.
He now has a new insulin pump to help control his diabetes. It should have cost several thousand dollars, but was purchased for a few hundred from a man who no longer needed it and wanted to help.
“I never even met him,” Marmon said.
His vision has returned to the point that he has started to drive again, but he still can’t ride his motorcycle because his depth perception hasn’t fully returned.
“And I still can’t work,” Marmon says. “All I would do is knock stuff over.”
Despite the long road, Marmon expects a nearly full recovery.
“It’s never going to be the same,” he said. “But once I can ride again, I’m going to organize a poker run to support the Lions Club.”
Marmon is not used to asking for help, but he’s grateful for the help he’s received.
“I would have been out on the street, blind or worse if it wasn’t for the Lions Club,” he added.
It wasn’t just his thyroid or diabetes that Marmon was fighting. Depression also set in, something he credits his wife Debbie for helping him overcome.
Looking back on the last year and a half, Marmon said before everything happened he didn’t think there were still people who helped strangers.
But as if his experience with the Lions Club wasn’t enough to restore his belief in humanity, last Christmas while standing in his yard a Suburban pulled up.
“These gals jumped out that I didn’t recognize,” he recalled. “They opened the back doors and grabbed boxes of groceries and bags of presents and came into the house.
“I said, ‘What is this?’ and one of them said, ‘This is Santa Claus,’ and to this day all I know is it was Santa.”
He still can’t figure out what he did to deserve the grace that was bestowed on him by the Cody community.
“But I’m eternally grateful.”
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