Breaking down walls of fear

Blinded and disfigured after an unprovoked knife attack at a Seattle clinic, Maritza Dowe left the hospital a year ago fearing her return to a home where she could no longer find things.

Now she navigates her house with ease, running fingers along the wall. Her family has learned to keep things carefully organized so she can remember every object's location. And she hasn't forgotten her fashion sense, putting combinations of pins in her shirts' tags to indicate their color and style.

The fear now is leaving the house.

"Anything outside of that door is scary for me," said Dowe, 49, sitting in her living room in the Boulevard Park neighborhood south of Seattle. "Once I'm 100 percent independent and I feel secure out in the world, I would love to go back to work. I'm not a person who can just be at home."

But being around strangers makes Dowe uncomfortable and the world doesn't yet feel safe.

Almost every day she sees flashes of the stranger who altered her life forever.

On July 17, 2006, as Dowe was seated at her desk at the Public Health — Seattle & King County clinic in downtown Seattle, Marilyn Walker came at her with a butcher knife and stabbed her more than 15 times in the face, chest and abdomen.

"I still remember it from A to Z," Dowe said. "She said, 'I'll teach you something,' and she just took the knife out of the bag and started stabbing like crazy."

Walker was a mentally troubled woman who had been committed for two years at Western State Hospital after she doused a tax preparer at H&R Block with gasoline and tried to set him ablaze in 2001. In April, she was tried for attempted first-degree murder for the attack on Dowe and found not guilty by reason of insanity.

"I always ask myself why this happened to me," Dowe said. "Bad things shouldn't happen to good people."

Telling the story helps her let go, she said. And so does knowing that Walker has been committed indefinitely to Western State Hospital. If she ever gets word that her attacker might be released, Dowe said her family is ready to lobby the courts hard to keep the woman locked up.

"Not just for me," she said, "I worry for the community. She could do this to anyone. I'm just lucky I survived."

In response to the attack last summer, Public Health has installed locked doors to nonpublic parts of its 11 clinics and conducted safety training for staff, according to spokesman Matias Valenzuela. At the downtown facility where Dowe was attacked, the department installed security cameras and physical barriers between patients and staff.

Dowe recently finished physical therapy for the stab wounds to her torso and continues to see a therapist for her wounded right hand. Scars on her face have nearly disappeared, but her left eye remains a source of chronic pain. If the pain worsens, she may need to have the eye removed.

With help and support from a caregiver during the day and her family in the evenings, Dowe is moving on with her life and adapting to a world without sight.

"We have our rough days and our good days, but she is taking it better than anyone can even imagine," said her husband, Curt. "She blows me away."

Dowe is teaching him to cook her favorite Puerto Rican recipes. She does the preparation and he handles the heat.

"I tell him do this and do that, and we make it together," she said.

Her three daughters, ages 22 to 30, are in the house often to lend a helping hand.

"There they are, over there," said Dowe, pointing proudly to an old photograph hung on the wall in a spot she remembers perfectly.

Her friend and former colleague Linda Romanovich also comes by often to help her explore the world with new senses. The two take tandem bike rides to feel the rush of the wind, enjoy walking shoeless on the beach and try to guess the color of a rose by its smell.

"She's been sort of my hero," said Romanovich, who has grown closer to Dowe since her attack. "She's a special person."

And Dowe's senses are helping her in unexpected ways. She notices approaching cars before others because she hears their distant exhaust note while others rely on their sight. Even her sense of smell has taken on extra dimensions, telling her about the types of trees around her on walks with friends and caregivers.

Other new skills take far more effort. Dowe is slowly learning to navigate stairs and obstacles with a cane, and she trains three hours every day on a computer that speaks the commands she gives and the text she scans.

"I want to enhance my secretarial skills so I'll be able to do it all without eyes," she explains.

King County has given her two years to return to work in some capacity. She will be off the payroll in a couple of months, though, when the balance of her vacation and sick days runs out.

Dowe worries now about losing her medical coverage and daily caregiver, but she looks forward to a life when they won't be necessary. She intends to begin lessons soon at the state Department of Services for the Blind, picking up life skills and confidence beyond her front door.

"It has been extremely sad to be in the house all the time. I've always been an active person, and now I feel stuck," she said. "I plan to be very independent, hopefully, but I'm afraid how I'll feel out there. I want to feel safe."

Brad Haynes: 206-464-3301 or bhaynes@seattletimes.com