At 9 months old, doctors removed a tumor in Carina Comer's brain that left her blind in one eye and with limited sight in the other.

She was 7 when the tumor returned, and she had to travel weekly from her Connecticut home to spend days in a Boston hospital for radiation treatment.

Her parents cried and raged against the unfairness of it all.

But in private.

They vowed to prove to their daughter, the youngest of two kids, that she was capable. They never allowed her to wallow in self-pity even though the world considered her just a blind girl.

When people meet Carina Comer these day, they realize she's blind, but describe her as a first-class baker, and the owner of a bakery in Beaverton, a place where she tries to help people believe in themselves the way her parents did for her so long ago.

The early early lessons in self-sufficiency began when Carina was in second grade. She enjoyed being in the kitchen with her mother, who loved to bake.

Soon Carina was helping.

She could find the sugar.

She could find the flour.

She could measure the ingredients.

"We never coddled her," said Karin Comer. "At every step, we believed in her."

When Carina's final radiation treatment ended, the second-grader said she wanted to help kids still in the hospital as a way to repay the kindness from schoolchildren who had left gifts with the nurses to give to the young patients.

So that first summer she was home, she began baking cookies and muffins. She loaded them into the basket of her trike, pedaling around her neighborhood to sell them to raise money for the kids.

She did that for the next 10 years, making more products and expanding her route.

Each Christmas, Comer and her mother would make the three-hour drive to Boston, so Comer could personally deliver toys, books and, of course, baked goods to the children.

By the time she graduated from high school, she figured she'd raised a total of $22,000 for all the toys.

After high school, Comer enrolled in a Rhode Island culinary school where she specialized in baking and pastries. She found internships, given menial tasks like cleaning things because bakers didn't think she could keep up.

At loose ends, Comer came to Portland to visit a girl she'd met when they both were getting cancer treatments. Comer eventually moved here and earned an MBA from Salem's Willamette University, where she focused entrepreneurship with the dream of opening a bakery.

She worked on the idea with classmates and created an extensive business plan. After graduating, she moved to Portland, found a place to live and rented a shared kitchen.

"As a visually impaired person, I worked differently than the others," she said. "I was paying by the hour for the kitchen and it was stressful."

Last year, she used loans from a bank and her family to lease and outfit a space, at 4725 S.W. Lombard Ave. in Beaverton. More than just a bakery, she wanted to give people like herself a chance.

She joined the National Federation for the Blind local chapter and said she was hiring people who wanted to learn the trade. She now has five employees, three who are sight-impaired.

Lora Ward, 49, who is legally blind, had a job in a pizzeria but left because the boss said she couldn't read the screen quickly and was slowing up the line.

"It was hard to find anyone who'd give me a chance," Ward said. "Carina did. If I didn't have this job, I'd be sitting at home."

Guide Dogs for the Blind, a Boring organization, provided Comer and Ward with Labradors named Sutter and Ribbon, both of whom spend time in a cozy kennel under the front counter where customers talk to them after placing an order. A sign by the cash register asks that customers be patient because most of the employees are blind or low vision. The bakery's recipes have huge print, and a magnifying glass is handy for books with smaller print.

The customers don't care about any of this.

Last week, when asked why they come to the bakery, a table of women, their faces revealing they'd been asked a stupid question, held up their pastries and got back to their conversation.

Her day starts about 4 a.m. and when evening comes she pays her bills, blowing up the documents on a large computer screen so she can make them out with her one good eye.

The work, Comer said, is exhausting. There are moments, when she's tempted to grumble. But she stops herself, remembering her mother's kitchen and the little girl who stood on a stool to reach the stove.

"Perseverance and determination," she said with a smile. "Those traits run deep in my family."

--Tom Hallman Jr.

thallman@oregonian.com; 503 221-8224

@thallmanjr