Two children receive prosthetic eyes at West Virgina University

The Associated Press
By Chelsea Fuller

The Dominion Post, Morgantown, West Virigina  McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

Sept. 21--FOR MORE INFORMATION about the WVU Eye Institute and the Children's Vision Rehabilitation Program /St. Lucia Outreach Program, click on the link at dominionpost.com.

Many do not realize how precious the gift of sight is until they lose it. No one knows this better than the two children from the Caribbean island of St. Lucia who came to Morgantown to receive something they have gone without for far too long.

As patients in the WVU Eye Institute's Children's Vision Rehabilitation Program (CVRP)/ St. Lucia Outreach Program, 9-year-old Christy Joseph and 17-year-old Desir Monchery were presented with custom-made prosthetic eyes yesterday at the WVU Eye Institute.

According to a release from the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center, CVRP is a needbased program established in 1996 to serve school-aged children suffering from various types of visual impairment regardless of their family's ability to pay. The program was initially created to assist West Virginians, but expanded to include St. Lucia in 1999.

Every year, WVU specialists treat about 100 children with incurable vision loss through medical eye care, assistive technology and optical devices across West Virginia.

This year, Christy and Desir are two of approximately 150 patients seen in St. Lucia through CVRP.

The program is not restoring Christy's and Desir's sight, but it is giving them something to help them feel more normal, said Clinical Research Coordinator Hilda Curtis, who has participated in the program for nearly ten years.

"Bullying is a problem everywhere, and the more we can help these kids feel 'normal' the better," Curtis said. Before the new prosthetics, Christy and Desir were given hand-me-down prosthetics provided by the WVU Eye Institute.

Christy suffers from Retinoblastoma, a fast developing cancer that affects the eye's light-detecting tissue that resulted in the removal of both her eyes. Her surgery took place in Cuba and was not done by a WVU surgeon, Curtis said.

Desir, who has sight in one eye, lost the other eye to an injury. His surgery was done by Dr. Judie F. Charlton, chair of the WVU Department of Opthalmology and director of the Glaucoma Service. According to Curtis and others present during Tuesday's procedures, Charlton was there for some of Tuesday's events, and was very excited for Christy and Desir.

The prosthetic eyes were custom made by renowned ocularists Walter Tillman and Christopher Antonini. Currently, there are only 141 ocularists in the world, said Tillman, who is the author of the only book ever published on the subject.