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July 29, 2005
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| Andis Narovskis came to Minneapolis from Latvia to be fitted with a prosthetic eye. He lost his left eye to cancer when he was a toddler. (MPR Photo/Sam Choo) |
Now, through the efforts of a paramedic and a doctor Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Andis has a new, very realistic, prosthetic left eye.
Minneapolis, Minn. — "When I saw some photos in the newspaper, when some other doctor had done something like that, and then I saw it, it looked really nice," says Narovskis.
"It" is an amazingly realistic prothesis, an eye complete with lids and lashes, that has been crafted by Dr. Todd Lund with Hennepin County Medical Center. Dr. Lund is a maxillofacial prosthodontist. What he does is a little-known subspecialty of dentistry.
He meticulously creates eyes, ears, noses, and jaws that his patients are missing, due to illness or injury. He says it's a mix of art and science.
"The effect that I really feel that I need to get to before the end of the sculpting phase, before I say, 'OK, we're done sculpting,' is for me to be able to hold the wax pattern with the ocular in place," says Lund, "And then there's the subjective effect that is hard to describe -- I have to be able to visually buy the effect of OK, that is his natural left eye."
Judging from photographs of Andis and the molds, it's clear that Lund had to start almost from scratch -- creating an eyelid and eyelashes. Everything.
"Due to the fact that his eye was removed when he was two or three years old, the bone surrounding his eye isn't as developed as his right side. So his left side is inherently asymmetrical to begin with," says Dr. Lund. "Thats going to call attention to his left side no matter what I do. And the challenge for me is to make something that blends in as best as possible so as to not attract attention to itself."
Andis came to HCMC because of the efforts of a paramedic, Viktors Rozenbergs. Viktors met the young boy more than 10 years ago, while he was working to establish medical services in Latvia.
"I was approached and asked by Andis' father, would I know anything about prosthesis, or is there anything I could do for his son," Rozenbergs says. "I thought it was a good challenge, and of course I didn't know anything about it, so I kind of promised him I'd look into it, to see if it would work out."
It's been quite a wait to get to this point. After weeks of taking molds and having fittings, Narovskis is close to seeing what the final product looks like.
"It is good to have big changes in life, and it is definitely good for myself," says Narovskis.
He does acknowledge a bit of worry about the new look -- wondering what people will think when they see him.
Dr. Lund places the prosthetic eye in Narovskis' eye socket, presses it in place, and adjusts it a bit.
"I think he understands very well that whatever I make for him, a good share of the challenge will be his accepting it and learning to use it, and present himself to the world as being 'I'm OK,'" says Lund.
Andis Narovskis and Viktors Rozenbergs, the paramedic, talk in Latvian.
"We're just looking at the eye and the color, and we're critiquing it, and he says he looks different," says Rozenbergs.
"What do you think, do you like yourself better this way?" he asks Narovskis. The response?
"I see the result, it's very nice," says Andis. I love it!"
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