Today Oli’s daddy drove her to Dallas to get a new pair of eyes. Every 3-6 months Oli sees her Ocularist, Randy Trawnik, and he makes her a bigger pair. Because she has anophthalmia (missing eye) on the right and microphthalmia (little eye) on the left, her entire eye structures on both sides are underdeveloped. The goal of the prosthetics are to increase them in size each time she gets new ones. It therefore stretches out the sockets and it makes the eyes bigger. Her left eye is almost at normal size due to intensive conformer therapy (I use conformers, painted conformers, and prosthetics interchangeably)
Here are some pictures of Oli’s prosthetic eyes. If anyone has any questions about them, please ask. I’d love to answer any questions you may have.
These were some of her first peg conformers. Remember “OMG! What did you stick in her eyes!”? Well, these were the awful ones prompting that response from people.
This is one of the first painted conformers that she got. Only the iris was painted because we needed to leave the rest clear just in case she had any light perception. Until we were absolutely sure that she didn’t it stayed clear. Now we know that she doesn’t see anything at all so the whole thing can be painted.
These are some of the last ones that her Ocularist in California made her before we moved to Texas. They were getting really thick because the socket was stretching so much and it became deep. The conformers had to fill most of that space so they wouldn’t fall out. Also because they still needed to push against that tissue at the back of her socket so it would continue to stretch. She eventually had a surgery last year and she got an implant in that right eye. Now the conformers don’t have to be so thick.
These last pictures are of her custom fit prosthetics made here in Dallas. Her Ocularist puts her to sleep once a year and takes molds of her eyes so he can make them fit exactly in the shape of her eye.
