{"id":109721,"date":"2025-08-01T07:58:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T07:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/109721\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T07:58:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T07:58:23","slug":"what-a-beautiful-view-blind-b-c-woman-sees-after-doctors-implant-tooth-in-her-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/109721\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018What a beautiful view\u2019: Blind B.C. woman sees after doctors implant tooth in her eye"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Gail Lane went blind 11 years ago, she didn\u2019t think she\u2019d ever be able to see again.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was like an overnight thing,\u201d the Victoria, B.C., 75-year-old said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was scary. It was sad. I thought about all the things I couldn\u2019t, suddenly couldn\u2019t see \u2026 especially in terms of the people in my life, my family, my friends, the dog, the cats I had.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the years that followed, she adjusted to unsighted life: navigating her apartment by touch, using a cane on the street, accessing the web through vocal and audio tools.<\/p>\n

She met her current partner Phil, who is also blind, through the Canadian Institute for the Blind.<\/p>\n

Then, three years ago, she was offered a tantalizing opportunity. Her ophthalmologist told her she was a candidate for a rare surgery that could potentially restore her vision.<\/p>\n

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The concept isn\u2019t for the faint of heart. The procedure \u2014 which Lane was one of the first three people in Canada to receive earlier this year \u2014 involves embedding one of the patient\u2019s own teeth, modified with a telescopic lens, in their eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first it was it was a scary thought, the whole tooth-eye thing, and the length of time that it took to go through all that referral, examinations, tests and all that stuff, was lengthy,\u201d she told Global News.<\/p>\n

But the prospect was enticing, and Lane signed up.<\/p>\n

Finally, in February she and two other patients went under the knife at Mount Saint Joseph Hospital in Vancouver, where ophthalmologist Dr. Greg Moloney and his team of oral surgeons for the first portion of the two-part surgery.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVictoria woman undergoes \u2018tooth-in-eye\u2019 surgery to restore vision\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

They were the first three people in Canada to ever receive the surgery.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a rare operation, not designed for most patients with blindness, but patients with a special type of blindness affecting both eyes,\u201d Moloney, who had performed the procedure successfully in Australia before moving to Canada, told Global News in March.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo for patients with severe corneal scarring at the front of their eye, but a completely healthy internal mechanism of their eye, this is one of the only operations that can sometimes be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the first surgery, doctors remove the patient\u2019s K9 tooth and implant it in their own cheek, where it stays for three months accumulating a covering of tissue that allows it to be later implanted in the eye.<\/p>\n

At the end of May, Lane returned to the operating room where doctors did just that.<\/p>\n

Since May, Lane has been gradually recovering her sight.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt wasn\u2019t take off the bandages and oh my god, I can see, it was gradual,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe light increased, shadows were bigger, silhouettes of people I could see more clearly \u2014 but no detail. And then it started to be things like, I could see a car.\u201d<\/p>\n

But after a slow start, Lane said her ability to see began recovering more quickly.<\/p>\n

One of the more memorable experiences was a recent visit to Dr. Moloney\u2019s office tower on Broadway. It\u2019s a place she\u2019d visited a number of times, and always heard others remarking about the dramatic scene outside his north-facing windows.<\/p>\n

This time, she was able to see what everyone was talking about.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGroundbreaking surgery gives Quebec boy gift of sight\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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