BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC | Alexandra Hobbs is grateful. That is the word she kept using while talking to Chelsea Now last week at her VISIONS at Selis Manor residence (135 23rd St. btw. Sixth & Seventh Aves).
The happily married mother to two daughters — three-year-old Destiny and one-year-old Faith — Hobbs, 28, is optimistic about her latest endeavor: raising money for a medical procedure that could potentially restore her sight.
At the age of three, Hobbs lost her sight after she was beaten by her teenage parents.
“My parents were young kids themselves,” she said. “They didn’t know how to raise kids.”
Her large family was crammed into two rooms and her parents were worried about food.
“I was little and I climbed on top of a chair because I saw cereal,” she recalled. “I reached up to grab the cereal and it fell. It went everywhere — it was Kix. And I got into serious trouble for that. I remember being beaten severely for wasting cereal all over the place.”
Hobbs was taken away from her parents and later adopted by her foster mother. Her father ended up serving six years in prison, she said.
“With my own kids, I couldn’t dream about doing anything to harm them,” she said. “But also I do understand the frustration that comes when you have generational poverty.”
Hobbs lights up when talking about her daughters, calling them “the best present in the world to me,” and they are one of the main motivations for the procedure.
“I want to do better for them,” she said. “Better than what I was exposed to.”
Hobbs went on to explain what she meant by “better,” and why the operation is important: “Blindness is like a suit, a body suit. When you have a body suit on, it’s a little restrictive. You can move still, you can operate, but it restricts your movements. It’s just harder to move around and do things. It doesn’t mean that you can’t, it’s just much harder.”
She and her husband, Elijah Hobbs, 32, work to “to raise these girls in a different environment than what we’re used to.”
Although Elijah is legally blind, he does have some vision, and does computer programming.
“We don’t make a lot of money but we do really well with what we have,” she said. “I’m grateful that I’ve made it. I feel like I’ve made it past my generational curse of abuse.”
They met in 2007 in Rockland County, at a convention about technology for those without vision, or with a limited amount.
“I didn’t want to go,” she said. “It was my birthday and I wanted to hang out in the city with my friends.”
She reluctantly attended the convention, and while hopping from table to table talking to people, she stopped at one where Elijah was sitting.
“At the table, he reached out to me and I noticed his really long muscular arms. I think that moment of admiration has cost me,” she said with a laugh. “He wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“He’s my biggest supporter,” she added. “He’s always been in my corner.”
They were married in 2008, and then along came Destiny and Faith. She hopes when Faith is a little older, she will be able to return to John Jay College and study humanities and criminal justice. She is also seriously considering law school.
Hobbs recalled how she began the research journey about stem cell therapy: her husband had talked to a friend at church about it. She had done research before, but had been unable to find a procedure that pertained to her condition, which is optic nerve atrophy. This means that the nerve in the back of the brain that connects to the eye isn’t really transmitting, she explained.
She found the Stem Cell Rejuvenation Center in Phoenix, Arizona. She liked that the center was transparent when answering questions, and had a set price for the operation: $7,100. They also didn’t make any guarantees, she said. The treatment offers a 60 to 70 percent chance of restoration of vision.
Hobbs is trying to raise $10,000, which includes travel and childcare costs, so that she can have the procedure done. At gofundme.com, people can contribute to her campaign, called “My chance to see the sun.” As Chelsea Now went to press, $910 had been raised.
“There are simple things in life that people take for granted,” she said.
Her husband concurred saying, “Us people who have sight, we forget, we take it for granted how sight fulfills us.”
Hobbs wants to be able to see her daughters and to discover the world with them.
“Everyone tells me how beautiful my daughters are and I believe them,” she said. “But I would like the chance to be able to experience that myself.”
To donate to Alexandra Hobbs’ fundraising campaign to pay for the procedure, go to gofundme.com/To-See-The-Sun.
