When we last caught up with Megan Fraver in August 2021, the West Lampeter Township wife and mother of four was planning a transatlantic trip for treatment in Germany and praying for a miracle.

Her prayers have been answered.

After years of various illnesses and countless doctor appointments both at home and abroad, Megan is thriving thanks to her Christian faith, persistence, and support from her family and the community.

It has been an arduous journey.

The trek began when Megan contracted COVID in November 2019. Early in 2020, a month before delivering her fourth child, she started experiencing vision problems in her left eye. "(Doctors) thought it was just a scratch on my cornea or something, but then it wasn't getting better with the drops," Megan said. "So, I went back and I said it was like a darkness and kind of blurry, and they did a back-of-the-eye picture and my optic nerve was swollen, so they sent me straight to the ER from there. They thought it was a tumor."

In September 2020, Megan lost almost all vision in her right eye. "I was here with my dad and my boys, and all of a sudden, I thought, 'This can't be happening,'" she said. "I started seeing darkness in this (right) eye. I thought there's no way, because they said it would never happen again in the other eye." After Megan spent time in three Pennsylvania hospitals, Lancaster neuro-ophthalmologist Helena Wu-Chen diagnosed Megan with bilateral NAION, a vision loss condition where both eyes are affected by non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, a type of sudden optic nerve damage.

In May 2021, Megan developed visual snow syndrome, inflammation in the brain's visual cortex that causes permanent damage. "I can never escape seeing a blizzard of flickering colors 24/7 even when my eyes are closed," she said.

Megan was beginning to lose hope. "I just kept praying, and then I finally I thought, 'I'm just going to have to accept this blindness,'" she said. "It is what it is."

Then she heard about a center in Germany that might be able to provide treatment. Megan applied and was approved, and a GoFundMe raised $25,000 to pay for the costs. "When you lose vision like that, you are so desperate to see again, and you can't," Megan said. "I had almost no vision and four kids."

She and her dad, Peter Coderre, traveled to Berlin in August 2021 so Megan could receive electrical stimulation treatment from husband-and-wife doctors Anton Fedorov and Julia Chibisova at the Fedorov Restore Vision Clinic.

Although changes don't always take immediate effect, Megan began "seeing" improvement right away. "It's absolutely amazing," she said. "I knew, for a fact, if we raised that money, and we prayed, we knew God was going to do huge things."

Megan and her husband, Matt, went back to Berlin in May 2022 for Megan to receive another round of electrical stimulation. Megan has been approved to go to Germany for a third treatment and is considering it.

Megan has also dealt with COVID, vertigo, and May-Thurner syndrome.

In September 2024, Megan's fortunes began to rise during a visit to her aunt Catherine Chhabra's farmhouse in Granby, Conn. "Before we left, she gave me some sourdough starter, and I thought, 'What am I supposed to do with this?'"

After working at Milton Hershey School for 10 years as a transitional living coordinator and a relief houseparent, Megan was a family and consumer sciences teacher at Martin Meylin Middle School before falling ill.

"My whole life is about cooking and baking, and I love that," she said. "But then I became disabled and thought I'd never work again. My aunt gave me the starter and I thought, 'I'm not much of a baker. I'm more of a cook.'" Megan's aunt gave her a recipe for a loaf of sourdough bread. "It's different than other people's," said Megan. "It has olive oil, and it's really special. It turned out completely perfect."

She made a loaf and asked her neighbor Kristina Szoke to try it. "I wasn't going to open a business," Megan said. "I am not that type of person. Kristina is the one who said, 'Megan, you need to open up a business.'" On Oct. 18, 2024, she started Sweet and Sourdough Co., later adding "Blessed Blind Baker" to the company's name. It is one woman with one oven operating out of her home.

Working between eight and 16 hours a day, Megan bakes sourdough cookies, bagels, pretzels, scones, granola, English muffins, cinnamon rolls, and more, and she sells the items on her Facebook page, which can be accessed through the website http://www.blessedblindbaker.com. Her packaging includes Bible verse 2 Corinthians 5:7: "I will walk by faith ... even when I cannot see." Megan became a licensed microbaker in June.

Her lightheadedness has drastically subsided, and her vision is significantly better. Megan's left eye has gone from 8% visual field to 79% and her right eye is approximately 45%, up from 8%. "I can drive better," she said. "If the visual snow wasn't here, it would feel as if I almost had normal vision, with both eyes open. ... If that would ever go away or a there was cure for that, then I would almost feel like a normal human with both eyes open."

While hoping her health will continue to improve, Megan is grateful to have come this far. "You don't know what my God can do," she said. "It's been a really cool testimony to so many people. My biggest thing through all this is how many people I've reached for Jesus. That is all I care about. ... Our family's just stronger now, and so many people have been inspired. Really that's the whole point."