MUSKOGEE, Okla. –– Caught in traffic along the Muskogee Turnpike, Payton Crum’s family arrived too late for her to hunt eggs with the other 7-year-olds. So, basket in hand, she headed toward the grassy lawn at Whiteside Park with a group of kids half her age.

“Are you going to hold my hand?” Payton asked her mother, the worried tone of her voice clearly suggesting that she hoped the answer was “no.”

Ordinarily, in unfamiliar surroundings and on bumpy ground like this, Paige Mannon would have no choice. With Payton legally blind from birth, she would need her mother’s hand to keep her steady and to guide her right up to the eggs.

But on Tuesday afternoon, Payton stopped at the edge of the Easter egg field to open a small briefcase and take out a pair of very high-tech, very expensive glasses. Resembling virtual reality goggles, they incorporate a high-speed, high-resolution camera that Payton can operate with a remote control, zooming in on distant objects, focusing and adjusting the contrast to give her a clear view of the world around her for the first time in her life.

“I really like them,” she declared after collecting half a dozen eggs — with her mother nearby but not helping. “I can see stuff.”

Born in Muskogee in December 2009, Payton had a seizure when she was only a few hours old, and an emergency helicopter flight brought her to Tulsa, where doctors diagnosed her with optic nerve hypoplasia, causing her to have no peripheral vision and no depth perception. A therapist explained to her mother that her vision would be like looking through wax paper, making it difficult to even walk steadily by herself.

eSight glasses would help, but they cost roughly $10,000 a pair. So with help from local media attention, her family sought donors through eSight’s website and, virtually overnight, raised not only enough cash for a pair of glasses but enough to order an extra battery pack, as well, which will eventually let Payton wear the device all day.

For now, however, she wears them for only brief periods to avoid eye strain. The glasses arrived Monday, and Tuesday was her first outing with them, Mannon said.

“I hope people will realize how good these really are for her and be happy they supported it,” Mannon said. “They’re going to change her life forever.”

Sitting in the grass with her mom, Payton opened her own eggs, counted her own Tootsie Rolls and waved at family members who were several yards away — none of which she had ever been able to do before.

Which is why she didn’t care how old the other kids were.

“I was really lucky today,” she said.

This article originally ran on tulsaworld.com.