Transplants using the cornea, the clear window in front of the eye, are quite common. In 2023, there were nearly 2500 corneal transplant recipients in Australia. My graft was to treat keratoconus, a condition in which the cornea thins over time and the round shape becomes conical. The distortion means light does not reach the retina, causing blurry vision.
Recently, I’ve been reflecting on my good fortune to receive a transplant. Early in my primary schooling I struggled to see the blackboard. I was initially prescribed glasses, but because of the nature of keratoconus better correction is achieved by hard contact lenses.
As time went on, my eyesight continued to worsen. You don’t go blind with keratoconus, but the very blurry vision, unable to be corrected, is limiting. While I was legally allowed to drive, I was not confident and stopped driving at night, which was challenging with three busy kids.
After the surgery, when my eye patch came off, there was no moment of miraculously restored vision. Slowly, it improved, and my eyesight sharpened.
While many people support the idea of organ and tissue donation, only one in three Australians are registered as organ donors. In this country, you are required to opt in on the Organ Donor Register, but the deceased’s family will still be asked to agree. Hence, the need for end-of-life conversations before it’s too late.
There are 7.7 million people registered on the Australian Organ Donor Register, and four out of five families say yes to donation if their deceased loved one is on the register. This drops to two out of five if families don’t know what their intentions were, or they never registered.
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Among my friendship circle, I am aware of tensions that have arisen between divorced parents about donating their child’s organs, causing even more stress as they were coming to terms with life support being turned off.
In my case, my gifted cornea finally failed in 2020, and I went through the entire process again. The stitches stayed in for the best part of 2½ years, removed a few at a time in the chair at my specialist’s rooms. Numbing drops were inserted before my specialist gently extracted the stitches with a tiny scalpel and tweezers.
When my first graft failed, my initial thought was that I wouldn’t go through it again, but sitting in the specialist’s room during one of those reprieves between lockdowns, I figured I had nothing better to do. ”Book me in,” I said, half thinking the procedure would be cancelled due to another COVID outbreak. But go ahead it did.
I’d like to say I can see clearly now, but it’s not a magic bullet. I still increase the size of the text when I read, reach for my binoculars at the footy and take photographs of things I can’t read so I can digitally zoom in. But one thing I’ll always be grateful for are the donors and those families who were willing to give me a chance.
Claire Heaney is a Melbourne writer.
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