PANAMA CITY — Cornell Jarquez Pryor already is starting to see his future in a new light.
The 18-year-old Bay High junior envisions shooting hoops with his father, seeing his picture hanging with photos of the school’s Hall of Fame and running track because he’s simply “a good runner.”
“I’m excited,” Pryor said. “I’m thinking when my vision’s better, I’ll be able to do more. I’ll be able to see the goal better when I’m playing basketball.”
Right now he can see about 2 feet ahead of him out of one eye, but he’s blind in the other. But after surgery later this month, Pryor’s vision will be 20/25 in the left eye. He leaves for surgery in Denver on April 16.
It’s one surgery “I’ve been praying for,” said Pryor’s father, Cornell Pryor. “He’s been deprived of everything, you know.”
The 3-D lense eye surgery will be performed without costs; however, to maintain his vision Jarquez Pryor will have to use a specific serum for the remainder of his life. The Eye Center of North Florida and students at Bay High School have raised more than $10,000 to help him.
To raise money at school, wristbands that say “J P.U.S.H.” — “just pray until something happens” — are being sold along with T-shirts that feature a picture of Pryor. An account also has been set up at Panhandle Educators Credit Union in his name.
“He’s really been through it, but he’s strong,” Cornell Pryor said. “So that made me strong.”
Losing his sight
As a toddler, Jarquez Pryor had been given too much of a single medicine for seizures, which resulted in a severe allergic reaction called Stevens-Johnson Syndrome.
“He had second-degree burns over 95 percent of his body — from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet,” his father said. “It burned him inside out,” including his eyes.
Although his body eventually healed through several operations, including a process by which cadaver skin was stapled to his entire body, his sight was completely gone out of this right eye and the vision in his left eye was in very poor condition.
A teacher at Oscar Patterson Elementary escorted preschool children from school to visit Pryor, who was then a preschooler, and “he began coming out,” Cornell Pryor said.
“He can tell you almost anything about anything,” said Eddie Page, a science teacher at Bay High. “Even with his handicap, nothing holds him down. He can remember things after just one read-through.”
His exceptional memory is a tool he uses every day at school. Not only can he retain text material, he also can identify people he’s once met by their voice.
While the surgery will change the way he interacts with his friends, it won’t change his relationships with the people around him, his father said.
‘Keep it 100’
Tywan White, 17, sat at a desk with Pryor on Monday. He had on a T-shirt that showed Pryor putting up two fingers — a sign for peace.
On the shirt, Pryor is wearing a ballcap and the caption right above his head reads: “Keep it 100” — meaning live each day to its fullest capacity.
“Everyone on my bus got one, and half the school bought one,” White said. “I wear this T-shirt because I wanted to support my friend Jarquez.”