Artificial Eyes
by Paul, Jenny and Emily Geelen

Diary From Darwin Part 2: some heart-warming artificial eye stories

Whenever I visit Darwin, I always come back with heart-warming and memorable stories.

One client I saw in the last days of the August clinic. He had damaged his eye many years ago. I crafted a clear conformer for him and said if you can wear that you can wear a haptic lens. He excitedly phoned the next week to tell me how comfortable it was. He then had to wait six months for my return and the new eye prosthesis.

He was so thrilled with his new eye that he found it difficult to walk out the door. He kept coming back inside to look at his eye in the mirror. I made him promise to keep his eyes on the road when driving home! I got a fantastic thank you text from him when I returned to Perth.

A wonderful Aboriginal woman in her late sixties presented me with a huge barramundi from the river in her back yard, when she got her new artificial eye. “Thank you for making me beautiful,” she said.

My new digital camera made a huge impact on everyone. It was a present from my husband and is more than just a digital camera. It has a video feature which proved invaluable throughout the clinic.

When someone gets an artificial eye, they can appreciate the appearance by looking in a mirror. But they can’t see the eye movement.

By videoing the eye movement and playing it back to the client, this problem is solved.

The result was incredible. Everyone was amazed at the amount of eye movement they had. Even the seasoned artificial eye wearers were stunned by what they were seeing on the video.

One thirteen-year-old boy couldn’t contain himself after seeing the video of his eye movement.

He’d lost his eye before Christmas and has just had his first artificial eye fitted. He rushed out to the waiting room to show his aunty the video.

When I suggested he take his glasses off and let her look at his eyes, he shook his head. He was adament that she watch the video. It will take a little while before he is comfortable in public without his glasses after hiding behind them for three months.

These are just a few stories that I will treasure.

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