CORNWALL, Ontario – You’d be forgiven if you were just a little bit upset at the fact that something as invasive as the surgical removal of an eye left you depressed and upset.
But you wouldn’t be Daphne Lafave.
The Cornwall woman, later this year, will undergo a procedure that will see her right eye completely removed…and she couldn’t be happier.
“That’s right – there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.
Lafave has spent a lifetime dealing with a myriad of health issues related to a type-1 diabetes diagnosis as a child. Since then it has been one medical stress after another, including a heart attack just days before delivering her daughter Jaida and kidney problems related to the diabetes.
But it’s the eyes of the 41-year-old that have given her the most trouble, thanks to complications like cataracts and glaucoma.
The swelling and pressure in her right eye became so bad that doctors actually made a hole in it years ago, and inserted a tube so that fluid could be drained away.
But now things have gone the other way and her eye has shrunk to the point of causing excruciating pain. Surgical removal will end her pain, once her body recovers from the procedure. She’s been blind in that eye for nearly eight years.
“It started like an eclipse and then just passed away,” she said.
Glaucoma is the term used to describe a number of related conditions that cause damage to the optic nerve, which transmits information from the eye to the brain. It usually, but not always, is associated with high intraocular pressure.
A normal person’s eye pressure is typically measured below 12 – Lafave’s was at more than 40 at its worse, causing extreme pain.
Despite all this, Lafave said it’s her positive approach to these conditions that have kept her going…in spite of the pain.
“It’s constant,” she said of the piercing she often feels in her eye. “I get numb from it. Sometimes I don’t even feel it because it is constant all the time.
“But because I won’t have an eye, I won’t feel the pain anymore. I’m so looking forward to that.”
The surgery, known as enucleation of the eye, minimizes further risk to life and well-being of an individual with conditions like end-stage glaucoma. Orbital implants and ocular prostheses are used by surgeons to restore a more natural appearance.
Lafave has advice for others dealing with chronic pain. “Try to keep positive and talk to as many people as you can,” she said. “I’m a very positive person, and now I’ll be even happier.”
