Nineteen-year-old Adila Azhati from Urumqi, China said yesterday that she is now the happiest girl in the world because she can see again.
Adila, accompanied by her father, Ushoer Azhati, left Taipei for home yesterday, after a three-month stay to receive three transplant operations to correct her near-blindness.
At a press conference on Thursday, she offered her sincerest gratitude to Taiwan after doctors at Chang Gung (
Adila said she now sees with her very own eyes the warmth and compassion that have been accorded to her by Taiwan -- a place that was no more than a geographic name to her before.
"Taiwan is the place that changed my life," Adila said, adding that although she does not know when will she visit Taiwan again, she will always remember her time here and be grateful to the country.
Adila said that after the three operations, she and her dad toured Yangmingshan and visited beaches along Taiwan's northeast coast.
"I've never known the forest could be so green and the sea so blue," she exclaimed.
The Uighur girl said the first person she would like to see when she gets home is her mother, who in her mind is still the image that she had when she was five.
Adila lost most of her sight after falling into a lime pit in her neighborhood, leaving her blind in her left eye and the vision in her right seriously impaired.
Her parents had taken her everywhere possible to seek treatment over the past 14 years. Three years ago they met Dr. Tsai Juei-feng (
Tsai told the Azhatis that the only possibility for Adila to see again was a corneal or stem cell transplant.
Adila and her father, the donor, made their first trip to Taipei last July.
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