44 to 60 cases are reported annually.
This is the number of people affected by the rare congenital disorder, Peter’s Anomaly. Bridie Lawall is one of those cases. Yet, Lawall is so much more than just a number in this sparse statistic. Lawall, a 21-year-old native of Bucks County, Pa., is currently a fourth-year student studying geography and environmental science.
Lawall was born blind in both eyes due to one of the most common symptoms of Peter’s Anomaly, in which a central opacity is cast across the corneas. There is no known cure for the condition, but corneal transplants have created the most significant success rate in providing vision to patients.
She went on to undergo two transplants in an attempt to restore her vision — one taking place when Lawall was only 3 months old, followed by the second on her other eye at 6 months.
Following the surgeries, Lawall was required to receive 21 eye drops a day in each eye following the initial procedure, eventually raising to as many as 60 drops after her second surgery. Lawall’s initial healing process as an infant required being significantly attended to, causing her and her family to travel from Pennsylvania to New York for daily doctor visits the entire first year of her life.
“It’s funny because I never thought of corneas as an organ or as a cornea transplant being considered an organ donation,” Lawall says. That was until she was approached by a friend to participate in a Gift of Life campaign last spring, which centered on organ donation.
Speaking about my condition has felt like it hasn’t really happened to me, but rather just a story I’ve heard.
Bridie Lawall
Participating in the campaign has prompted Lawall to reflect on her experience, learn more about exactly what the condition is and has prompted her to become an advocate for organ donation around campus and its surrounding communities.
Coincidentally and unrelated to Peter’s Anomaly, Lawall’s older brother lost vision in his left eye from a detached retina at eight years old. “Seeing him go through his stuff made me feel more aware … It was the first time I was cognitively like, ‘I was blind!’” Lawall was fortunate enough to have gained her sight back before she could understand just what had happened to her.
“I never try to identify my condition as something that held me back because, fortunately and very graciously, it didn’t leave that much of a lasting impression,” Lawall says.
The success of Lawall’s surgeries was extremely rare and for the majority of her life, she was the best-resulted outcome of the corneal transplants used as treatment for Peter’s Anomaly. “As my family was deciding on my treatment, almost every doctor pushed us away from going through with the surgeries … one even said that I was only ever going to be able to read the big “E” on the eyesight chart.”
Lawall credits many of her successes, both medically and in life, to those who have supported her and her family. It was her family members who assisted in making the drive to New York from Pennsylvania every day so Lawall’s mother could be in the backseat with her administering the eye drops. Her father’s coworkers picked up shifts to give him time off.
“A lot of the good that came out of my situation was from the help of other people … Collective strength is so important,” Lawall says.
Flash-forward two decades to the present day, Lawall’s corneas are still in amazing condition despite the warning that they had the potential to disintegrate by this point in her life.
All the anomalies regarding Lawall’s condition and experience have led her to strive to give back in any way she can.
As a freshman, Lawall first found out about the Movin’ On Music Festival annually hosted here at Penn State. Lawall immediately took an interest in what Movin’ On was, as it aligned with a lifelong passion for performance. Little did she know it would soon align with her passion for helping others.
After being approached by other members to discuss sustainability efforts for the festival, Lawall was immediately intrigued. “Someone approached me with sustainability efforts they were working on for the concert and I was like ‘What do you mean sustainability in entertainment, how does that work?’”
Following this moment, it clicked. Lawall declared her major in geography later that year and knew that her passion lay in helping the environment through the entertainment industry.
At the start of her sophomore year, Lawall was named Director of Operations of the festival, with a focus on sustainability efforts for the show.
Following her first in-person festival post-pandemic and realizing the inefficiencies of trash collection after large-scale events like Movin On, Lawall began brainstorming ways to optimize the existing systems.
“I started to reflect on what the festival was doing and where we could cut back [on waste production],” says Lawall.
In collaboration with the Penn State Sustainability Institute and an Eco-Representative from the university, Lawall implemented a new waste sorting system for her first Movin’ On as Director of Operations. Essentially, all of the leftover waste from the show was sorted out between recyclables and trash. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh my god! How am I gonna convince 30 kids to hand sort through trash at three in the morning after the concert,’ but I was so thrilled with how it was received.’”
Through the implementation of this system, Movin On’ was able to establish a sustainability team. Lawall says that the team became as much of an educational effort as it was a community-building experience.
The first year that the new waste sortation was used, Lawall and the rest of the Movin’ On members sorted through about 300 lbs of trash and recyclables. The following year, Lawall was Director of Operations again. “That was really an awesome experience because I could build off of what we had started … we had more metrics going into it,” Lawall says.
That year, the Movin’ On team hand-sorted through 900 lbs of trash and recyclables in an hour.
I look back and it was great because we were prepared. We had people come and take pictures to document the work that we were doing. We had something to show for when people would ask just exactly what we were accomplishing.
Bridie Lawall
Through these experiences, Lawall has found her place in a community she loves so much and has given back to those around her. “I didn’t ever think there would be a way to combine sustainability and events. I always thought I was gonna have to choose between the two of them but knowing that there is a world where they can coexist has just been seriously amazing.”
As Lawall reflects on her life as a whole, she recognizes that her passions and efforts have stemmed from everything she endured from birth. “An appreciation for people,” is the way Lawall refers to the work she has accomplished and the work she intends to accomplish for the rest of her life.
You’ll never know if you don’t try. Put more good out into the world.
Bridie Lawall
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