Cody Woman Was Going Blind When Transplant Gave Her A Second Chance At Sight

As a fourth-generation Cody native, Kelly Tamblyn has traveled to see Sunlight Basin many times, but it was during a trip in July 2023 that she realized how much she’d been missing. 

Tamblyn has Fuchs’ dystrophy, an eye condition that causes people’s eyesight to worsen over time. Eventually, it got so bad she needed a partial cornea transplant, and it was during a trip after her recovery that she truly saw the site for the first time in more than 15 years. 

“I thought I was enjoying it, but going up there and being able to see it like it's supposed to be seen, I didn't know what I was missing,” she said.

During the trip Tamblyn took two photographs that are now part of the Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Bank’s Circle of Life Photo Project, a traveling exhibit which helps raise awareness about cornea and other types of transplants. 

“People just don't know enough about it,” said Ryea O’Neill, Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Bank Community & Professional Relations Coordinator. “When we think about donation, everybody automatically thinks heart transplant or a kidney transplant, but one person has the ability to give the gift of sight to two people. You do not have to have good eyesight and you don't have to have good health.”

Giving The Gift

The Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Bank (RMLEB) was founded as a nonprofit in 1982 by the Lions of Colorado and Wyoming. For the last 40 years, it has been the mission of RMLEB to help others overcome blindness through cornea transplantation and research.

The cornea is the clear, front part of the eye where a contact lens would sit. It is responsible for 75 percent of the focusing power of the eye. Diseases or trauma to the cornea account for about 12% of all blindness in the U.S. The cornea has five layers. All or just certain layers can be replaced with a transplant. 

The eye bank has carried out the wishes of more than 61,000 eye donors in Colorado and Wyoming by facilitating more than 58,000 sight-restorative transplants locally, throughout the U.S. and the world. 

One of those donors was Crickett Ann Volmer of Laramie, who died in March of 2019 when she was 23 years old. 

Crickett was the second child born to Jay and Becky Volmer and her mom described her as “a loving person and caregiver.” 

“When she was little, she emulated everything I did,” Becky said. “She took great care of dolls and wanted to be a mom. That was her goal in life, to be a mom.”

She started her schooling at the one-room schoolhouse in Parkman before she transferred to Tongue River Elementary, and she stayed through sixth grade. Crickett and her family then made the journey with her family to Australia. She completed four years of schooling online while they were in the Outback, enjoying the many opportunities that came with living abroad. 

“Once she went to Australia, it actually made her much more adventurous and ready to explore and see and do things,” Becky said. 

That Medication

When the family returned to the states, Crickett completed her high school education at Southeast High School in Yoder. When it came time to choose a possible career path, the family knew she would choose one that helped take care of people. 

In high school, she was able to attend Camp Med at the Torrington hospital, and she narrowed her choices down to pharmacy or physical therapy. Ultimately, she decided on pharmacy school after she did an internship at Community Drug in Torrington. 

After starting at Eastern Wyoming College, she transferred to Laramie County Community College to finish her associate’s degree. She then got accepted into the pharmacy program at the University of Wyoming. 

“She worked her tail off at school and was very thrifty,” Becky said. “She finally took out loans after five and a half years of school.” 
In 2018, she met Chaz Evert, a rangeland firefighter, and became engaged. In her final months of pharmacy school, the pair were busy planning their future, including a trip to Ireland when she graduated that spring. 

On March 1, 2019, Crickett had a bad stomachache and eventually sought medical attention. She had surgery for appendicitis and spent one night in the hospital to recover. Becky said there weren’t any complications with the surgery. 

Being a pharmacy student, Crickett was very interested in the meds they gave her afterward, one of which was a shot of blood thinner. She later asked if she should get another one, but was told it wasn’t necessary and was sent home.

A few days later on March 5, she woke up feeling unwell.

Donation

It got so bad, Chaz called the ambulance, and they took her to the hospital, where a short time later she passed away from a pulmonary embolism.

“They tried for an hour and a half to save her because they said she's just too young, but they didn't know at the time what was wrong with her,” Becky said. “She had several blood clots that went to her lungs.”

When her parents reached the hospital, they were given papers to sign to allow for donation, something Crickett had wanted. Because of how quickly Crickett passed they were able to donate her vital organs but were able to take her corneas, with one viable to use. After no recipients were a match in the U.S., it eventually went to a young boy in Ireland. 

Becky said she wrote a letter to the recipient of Crickett’s cornea sharing about her daughter but she’s unsure if he’s seen it. 

“It was the hardest letter I'd ever written, just trying to sum up her life,” she said. “She was so much more than words. Since it was sent out of the country, it goes to the institution that did the transplant and then to his parents. So whether or not his parents gave it to him or decided it would be too much, I don’t know.”

Becky said Crickett’s passing has taught her family to enjoy life. She said even though Crickett was busy with school, she still enjoyed taking trips and spending time with friends and loved ones including one to San Francisco with Chaz the December before her death.

“She just did things in the moment and lived,” she said. “So it was a huge eye opener for my husband and I, because we were the old fuddy-duddies. We have now learned that none of us is guaranteed a single day here on Earth, and you better take advantage of those opportunities and live life to the fullest.

One of those included a trip to Ireland in 2022, where they were able to spend a few weeks and spread her ashes in various parts of the country. 

“We plan on going back again next year,” Becky said. “Every opportunity we have to be adventurous, we take advantage of those opportunities.”
As a way to honor their daughter, the Volmers had some small random acts of kindness cards made up that include Crickett’s name and a Dr. Seuss quote.

“She was the person that could in the spur of the moment see a need and help somebody,” Becky said. “The cards are fun. I'll go to Cheyenne and take some Reese's and these cards and when I see someone that looks like they could use a little boost I give them that.”

Becky also takes every opportunity she can to share Crickett’s story. She recently spoke at a Circle of Light exhibit opening in Torrington.

“As a mom I just want people to not forget how wonderful she was and what a blessing she was,” she said. “She just made an impact in everybody's life that she met. And so to be able to keep sharing her story and keeping her memory alive is really important to us.” 

Sharing Gratitude

The Circle of Light Photo Project started out of a need for corneal transplant recipients to share what they are grateful for, O’Neill said. It is a collection of photographs taken by people whose sight was restored through cornea transplants. The project educates the public about the impact eye tissue donation has on the lives of those in their communities. Photos range from professional quality to cell phone snapshots.

“That's what we really love about this project, is you don't have to be professional. It's really just about that gratitude,” O’Neill said.

For years the photos were presented at a yearly gala, but after the pandemic RMLEB decided to make it a traveling exhibit

“We were unable to do the exhibit for the very first year of COVID unfortunately, but then when we came back together, we thought, ‘Okay, how can we do this differently so that we can connect more with our communities.’ So what we did is we decided we would go to the people with the exhibit.”

The educational exhibit began traveling in Colorado and Wyoming in 2024 to a variety of locations including libraries and hospitals. It’s been so popular that it’s run has been extended through 2025. Currently in Wyoming it is on display at Eastern Wyoming Community College in Torrington. It will also be in Basin in April.

There’s information about all types of donations and next to each photo is the story of the photographer. Tamblyn’s photos include a chipmunk eating a sunflower seed at Dead Indian Pass. The other is a scenic view of Pilot and Index peaks. 

“The stripes on the chipmunk I would have never been able to see,” she said. “And I wouldn't have seen the mountains in the background, and then all the different shades in the picture of Pilot and Index. I didn't realize how much I was missing.”

Receiving The Gift 

When she was in her 20s Tamblyn was diagnosed with Fuchs’ dystrophy, a condition in which fluid builds up in the clear tissue at the front of the eye. This causes the cornea to swell and thicken, leading to glare, blurred or cloudy vision, and eye discomfort.

“You can't tell where the street stops and the curb starts,” she said. “You can’t see white on white or black on black. You just can't see any shades or anything.” 

As her sight gradually worsened, Tamblyn did things to compensate. She painted a few rooms in her house darker shades to reduce the glare. Windows needed to have shades, and her computer screen was amber-colored to reduce blue light. 

At her home everything was put in the same place after use so she could find it. 

“I wasn't actually looking for things, I'm just grabbing them,” she said. 

Trips to the grocery story were the same, with her remembering where things were because she couldn’t read the labels. She said once she picked up what she thought were a box of regular Triscuits only to get them home and discover they were a “disgusting” flavored variety.

She also quit going out to restaurants or other places where she might run into people because she wouldn’t be able to see their faces to recognize them.

“It was embarrassing because I didn’t know who they were,” she said.

Tamblyn had been told she’d eventually need corneal transplants but was surprised when during a routine eye exam in February 2023 she learned there was too much scar tissue, and it needed to happen now. 

Her first transplant was scheduled for her left eye transplant a few months later on April 12. Just four days before surgery she went to visit her mom’s grave and couldn’t see the curb, causing her to fall and severely break her foot. 

“I felt like that was my mom's sign for me to get it done,” she said. “Because tissue can only last for two weeks, I couldn't postpone the surgery after I broke my foot.”

Partial Cornea

Tamblyn only received part of the cornea, which means a faster recovery time. Under conscious sedation, the surgery took about 15 minutes. 

“It took longer to wait and get the gas bubble put on top of all that, and to make sure that nothing was folding up,” she said.
For a full corneal transplant, the recovery time is about a year, but for a partial transplant much faster, with Tamblyn’s taking six weeks. After surgery, patients are required to lay still for about a week. Tamblyn said her broken foot made that part almost easier because she couldn’t put any weight on it.

She was given eye drops to reduce swelling and inflammation and help prevent infection and rejection. She was also unable to get her eye wet for the first month.

Two months later on June 14, she had the right eye done and the process started over again. Tamblyn didn’t have any problems after the first eye was done but said the edges of the second transplant started to pull away. This can eventually lead to rejection. Thankfully, her transplant went back down on its own.

“It was really hard to judge depth, because of two different visual fields,” she said. “But before the year was up, I was able to get this pair of glasses, and I can see with both eyes. Now it's absolutely amazing.”

Later that summer, Tamblyn’s sisters took her on a road trip to the Forget Me Knot Festival in Cooke City and it was on the way back over the Beartooth Highway that she got her first good look at Sunlight Basin in many years.  

When she was fully healed, she also bought a second-hand camper and went camping as much as possible.
“Before I couldn't walk on uneven ground so if someone couldn't go with me, then I couldn't go, because I might fall. And just being able to stare at things or go to a movie was amazing, because you could just see all the pictures.”
As part of her job at Park County Public Library, Tamblyn has to catalog DVDs. She can now read the words on the back without a magnifying glass. And as a Cody City Council member, it’s made reading the informational packets for each much easier. 

Tamblyn said she’s thought about reaching out to the families of the donors but is hesitant to do so as she doesn’t want to make their grief harder.  

“At some point I probably will want to know who the donors were, but right now, I just don't feel comfortable reaching out,” she said.

And she still has Fuchs’ dystrophy so eventually her eyesight will decrease once again. 

“They don't have any timeframe, but if I get 20 more years of being able to see that's amazing,” she said. “There's no price on it. It's just fantastic.”

Make An Impact

At the driver’s license office where Becky works in Torrington, Tamblyn’s picture of the chipmunk currently hangs on the wall. Becky said the photo opens the opportunity to be able to discuss donation with people.

“God put me where I'm supposed to be here too, because it is where you mark on your application for your driver's license if you want to be a donor,” she said. “It's nice to be able to share,  when it's appropriate, with people about Crickett and what an impact donation makes on people's lives.

“One day I had a whole lobby full of people, and I was sharing with somebody Crickett’s story, and the last man to be waited on and said because of Crickett’s story, he actually changed his mind and marked to be a donor.”

Tamblyn also encourages people to choose yes when filling out the form for their license.

“If they're on the fence, please jump over and check the box,” she said.