University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center | 1000 Wall Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48105 | 734.763.8122
Copyright © Regents of the University of Michigan
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| Ernestina Parravano- The Heart of Kellogg  Ernestina Parravano has no shortage of stories. She can tell you about children who have serious medical problems at Mott Children’s Hospital, or what it is like to be at the Kellogg Eye Center and hold the hands of families whose children are faced with vision-robbing eye disease. She often spends 7 days a week volunteering at the Medical Center, helping patients deal with a difficult diagnosis, waiting with families as loved ones go through surgery, and once even granting a little boy’s wish to be taken to surgery in a red wagon. For Ernestina, this involvement is an opportunity to make friends and as she says, “Friends mean life.” If that’s true, then Ernestina at 82-years-old has a lot of life ahead of her.Helping others has always been a part of Ernestina’s life. Growing up in Italy she and her friends used to sew clothes and cook for the local children. During World War II, they helped those whose homes had been destroyed. It was her own son’s childhood disease, though, that brought her volunteering spirit to the Kellogg Eye Center. After Ernestina and her husband came to the U.S. in 1948, they settled in Princeton, New Jersey, where her husband was a member of the chemistry faculty, and started a family. They had four boys. One of the four, Paul, was diagnosed at the age of 17 months with retinoblastoma, a cancer of the eye. By the time he was 3, Paul had lost both his eyes to the disease and has been blind ever since. Ernestina taught him to read Braille, as well as to type so that he would be able to do school work. Since Braille textbooks were not available, she would read his schoolbooks aloud. When he went off to college, friends volunteered to do the same. He eventually graduated from Harvard with a law degree and currently works in the President’s office at M.I.T. Paul’s college roommate, Carmen Puliafito, had gone to Harvard knowing he wanted to be a doctor, but it was his experience with Paul and his family that inspired him to become an ophthalmologist specializing in retinal disorders. In tribute to his continuing relationship with the Parravano family, he recently made a donation to the Kellogg Eye Center’s expansion campaign in honor of Ernestina. In fact, the Eye Center has received a number of gifts that recognize Ernestina’s tireless work on behalf of our patients and families. Ernestina doesn’t take thanks easily though. Instead, she thanks the staff and faculty for the opportunity to work among them over the past 24 years. “It has been such a joy to be here, to make friends, to see cures, to be a part of the family at Kellogg.” Ernestina says, “It’s up to us to decide what comes of hard times and how we react to them.” It is this attitude and her belief that we are responsible not only for ourselves but for those around us that makes Ernestina such an invaluable volunteer and such an inspiring human being. |
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University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center | 1000 Wall Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48105 | 734.763.8122
Copyright © Regents of the University of Michigan |