Letters From Friends

Dear Jay,

My name is Mya, and I'm from Mississippi.

It's funny how I stumbled upon your site, but it was definitely interesting. I have a greater sense of empathy for those of you who have artificial eyes. My freshman year of college, we read a short story called Darkness at Noon that was basically an essay that was written by a blind man. It was really poignant, but funny at the same time. You remind me of him, only I know you're not blind. I was just wondering: did you get to choose which eye you wanted? I saw a man with an artificial eye when I was younger, and it bulged out of the socket. Normally, when the eye rests in the socket, if one turns his head to the left or right, the eyes move involuntarily. This individual's did not. It scared the heck out of me, and I've had a phobia ever since. Your site alleviated the majority of this phobia. Also, when you take your eye out, is there a "popping" or "sucking" sound? I know that it sounds weird, but I was curious. I don't like to assume, and I figured I'd ask while I had the chance.

Thank you, and I hope to hear from you soon!

~ Mya in Mississippi

Hi

My name is Saeed and I am going to have my right eye removed next week (2001.feb.10). I have never thought that this could happen to me, and I am having big difficulty dealing with it. I found your website and it was such a tremendous help just before my surgery.

Thank you for having done a great job by sharing your experience and letting people doing the same thing. Your upbeat personality and the way of looking at this trauma has already helped me a lot. Thank you again for a great website.

Saeed

Hello!

At first, many thanks for your excellent website! I came around by searching for information about eye removal and artificial eyes.

Well, let me tell a bit about myself. I am a 19-year old female from Germany and I am about awaiting the removal of my left eye. It became necessary due to glaucoma and a corneal transplant surgery where have been several problems. During operation my eye started bleeding a lot and I lost more than half of eyeball volume. I have no medical knowledge, so I can't explain the exact reasons for that happening.

Now living with a blind eye, a clouded cornea and a shrinking eye, the doctor asked me to let the eye be removed because it makes more problems (and sometimes pain) than it is helpful. And, of course, it is very unsightly, people always look at me because of this.

So, after a period of thinking about it, I decided to let my doctor do the enucleation. Although the eye a damaged a lot, it was really a difficult decision I made. The operation is scheduled for the end of April.

Your website helped me a lot to get information and learning about other people's feelings. Additionally, I agree with you all, it is also my fear that they remove the wrong eye! But I know from the hospital (from my corneal transplant) that they ask you which eye should be operated to make sure that they mark the right eye and make no mistake.

My second concern is about how I will look like after surgery. But after I read you site, I concluded that it might be not as bad as I had imagined.

And the third thing is that I agree that nervousness before surgery is more present than after surgery. Well, there are several weeks left until then but I am starting about making thoughts about what I will go through.

Again, thank you a lot for providing the information. I think you will hear from me when I underwent the surgery, I will tell about my experiences.

Greetings,

Sandy

I just wanted to write to thank you for your very supportive web site. I lost my eye when I was 14. I was in a local park with a couple of my friends, when one of them pulled out a BB Gun. I was shot in the left eye. I was rushed to the hospital, where they proceeded to try to remove the BB, but to no avail. I was in the hospital for a week. Everyday they would check me to see if I had any vision at all. Finally at the end of the week they determined that I would never get any vision in my left eye. I then had to make the decision to remove the eye, or leave it alone. It was a tough decision, but finally my family and I decided that I should have it removed. This is what the ophthalmologists there had recommended. Two weeks later I was back in the hospital to have the eye removed.

That period in my life was so hard. I was so scared of what I was going to look like with a prosthesis. I thought everyone would know by just looking at me. I was just a freshman in high school. I though no boy would ever want to date me. I went through a rough time. When I was finally fitted for my prosthesis, I could not believe how great and natural it looked. My ocularist, Kevin Kelly, did such an awesome job. No one could even tell! I was so happy.

Today, I am a 22 year old woman. I work full-time, and go to school part-time. I am the mother of a 2 year old son, and I am planning my wedding for September of 2002. Obviously this terrible incident has not slowed me down at all and I found the greatest man ever who wants to marry me, glass eye and all.

Of course everything is not always fine and dandy. I still come across those young children who look at me and say "What's wrong with your eye?", but don't we all! I am just grateful that I have my right eye, with perfect vision I might add! I would really like to talk to people who have gone through the same type of experience. So if anyone is interested in writing, please do.

Thanks again for this resourceful website!

Jill

I lost more than just the globe....so, the prostheses your website describes don't apply to me... My cancer was in the eye socket and I had to have the entire eye socket contents removed...I'm left with a cavity.. Is my only alternative to wear a patch over it?