Custom ocular prosthetics have given many people who have lost their eyes a positive outlook. Alex Raymond is one of them.
Seventeen-year-old Alex lost his eye to retinal blastoma when he was 3 years old. His mom Jill explains what happened.
"The option was to do radiation or to remove the eye, and so because of the free-floating cancer cells, we spoke to several specialists, they recommended his eye to be removed, because the cancer cells could more to the optic nerve," Jill said.
They were referred to Roland Scott, an ocularist.
"For an artificial eye, out of surgery it's usually a four-to-six-week process," said Roland. "We'll take an impression of the socket and come up with a wax model.
"After you get your wax model to the correct dimensions you'll make a mold of that, but you'll also paint a color with the individuals in front of us to match the color of the iris, and this is incorporated into the mold along with the acrylic that the artificial eye will be made from."
Looking at the finished product, the eye looks so real.
"They match perfectly to his left eye, and then when it was completed, it was a mirror image, and once they put it in it was as if his eye was never removed," said Jill.
Alex is an active teenager. There are just a few things he can't do as a result of his eye.
"I can't play football, tackle football or I can't get body slammed," said Alex. "It doesn't even feel like I have a prosthetic eye. I don't even feel it in there"."
"Those eyes always stood out, " Jill said, "so when people saw him as a baby they'd always on his eyes, and then for something like this to happen to him, you think, 'Oh, my gosh, how is he ever going to look the same?".
To learn more about custom ocular prosthetics go to www.ocularist.com.
Robert B. Scott Ocularists, Ltd.
111 N. Wabash Ave., Suite 1620
Chicago, IL 60602
Board Certified Ocularist, Board Approved Diplomate Ocularist
Phone: (312) 782-3558
Park Ridge office:
600 W. Higgins Rd. #1R
(847) 698-9117
