- PATRICK FARRELL / MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
So…..Have you heard about Ole Nana Tooth-Eye yet!? That’s her, to the left there—just a regular, garden-variety old lady with a regular, garden-variety old eyeball. OR SO SHE WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE.
But there’s something verrrrrrrry unusual going on on the other side of this woman’s face (photo after the jump). It doesn’t make any sense, and it will destroy your brains, and you should prepare yourself now. Say goodbye to everything you ever thought you knew about eyeballs, teeth, little old ladies, human decency, medical science, and sharks! (Wait, not sharks.) Here we go:
A 60-year-old woman blind for nine years has regained useful vision after a rare operation in Miami in which surgeons removed one of her teeth, drilled a hole in it, inserted a plastic lens into the hole and implanted the tooth-lens combination into her eye.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I’m sorry. Are you still here? I had to bite down on this leather strap and have a seizure for a few months. More:
The multistage procedure began when Dr. Yoh Sawatari, a dental surgeon at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center, extracted Thornton’s eyetooth, shaved it flat horizontally, drilled a hole in it and inserted an acrylic lens. He implanted the tooth/lens prosthesis under the skin beneath the clavicle at the top of her shoulder for three months so the combination could heal together.
A month later, surgeons removed a patch of skin from the inside of her cheek and laid it over her cornea to replace the moist tissue lost to the disease.
Two months after that, Perez extracted the tooth-lens combination from her shoulder, cut a flap out of the skin over the center of her cornea, cut a hole down into the eye and inserted the tooth-lens. He sewed the flap shut to hold in the prosthesis and cut a tiny hole so the lens can protrude a couple of millimeters out of the eye.
I have several comments.
First of all, HEY LADY! YOUR EYE IS A TOOTH. YOUR TOOTH IS AN EYE.
Also, WHY DID THEY LITERALLY USE YOUR EYETOOTH TO MAKE YOUR EYE-TOOTH!? THAT IS UNACCEPTABLY LITERAL!
Third of all, it is really, really awesome that you can see now. Congratulations! Science is the best.
And finally, I REALLY AM STILL NOT CLEAR ON HOW A TOOTH BECOMES AN EYE.
If you can make a tooth into an eye using “a lens” and “a flap,” why not use, like…
A marble?
A glass eye?
Another human’s actual eye?
A finger?
A tangerine?
A tiny doorknob?
Or, if we’re sticking with the tooth theme, a little set of false teeth so that when you blink it’s all “NOM NOM NOM”? Hahahahahaa. Anyway.
Shit is fucked up.
“I’m so thankful that the doctors at Bascom Palmer never gave up on me; they kept searching,” Thornton told CBS. “I’m looking forward to seeing my seven youngest grandchildren for the first time.”
I am an asshole.
Thanks to Ashley for telling me about tooth-eye, and for saying the words “tiny doorknob.”
- TOOTH-EYE
- TOOTH-EYE
- TOOTH-EYE
Oh, how novel. “It’s an eyetooth, so why the hell not?”
As icky and weird as this is, my guess is that they decided that her own tissues would be much less likely to cause the body to reject the new eye. A glass eye wouldn’t work because you couldn’t effectively rewire the optic nerve to see through it. Apparently this woman’s optic nerve must still have been functioning, but the rest of the eye was deteriorating.
Still, creepy and weird. A little Frankenstein-ish, if you ask me.
whaaat the fuck i wish i hadnt clicked. oh my god. im reading this during my lecture and the kid behind me made a choking noise of confusion.
whaaat the fuck i wish i hadnt clicked. oh my god. im reading this during my lecture and the kid behind me made a choking noise of confusion.
lindy, you are too funny. it’s unfair.
Wow. I think the tooth-eye is beautiful.
AHHHHHHHHH! IT’S THE EFFING EYE OF SAURON!!1!
seriously though- good for her.
I just gasped so loudly after seeing that picture that my dogs came running over to see what was wrong. Glad she can see, science is awesome, but…. damn.
In related news, Apple immediately filed a multi-billion dollar suit against Thornton for her unauthorized use of a iTooth.
“I’m looking forward to seeing my seven youngest grandchildren for the first time.”
Here’s hoping her grandchildren don’t go running in terror. “Granny, your eye looks like something out of a bad horror movie.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3658/3684…
If you dare.
this has been around a while, you’re a bit late to the party… and while it is odd looking, you’re pretty fuckin’ juvenile in your reaction. This is a triumph of modern medicine, of creative empirical thinking and experimentation on the part of those who came up with this, oh, and yeah, she gets to SEE. har har har.
No, no, no, no, no! Also, grandchildren all pretty much look the same to old people, don’t they? We’re gonna need to get some one-way glass over that eye-tooth grandma. I don’t see the point in traumatizing these kids in such an above-average way.
We need more of the “unacceptably literal”, especially when science is involved.
PS
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHMFGODDDDDDDDDDDDDD
laughed so hard barf came up.
You’re so mean to this lady. So mean, Lindy.
@ 12
Hey myr, suck it. I’m a lover of science, and to act like this reaction is unacceptable or unexpected is sort of inhuman. Get over yourself. Science is cool and gross and does weird shit with teeth and eyes, and THAT’S WEIRD. Triumph bedamned.
@10 My thought too: it’s great she can now see her grandkids cringing and running away from their beloved and terrifying grandmother.
Mommy, why does Grandma always wear sunglasses?
If her life’s a little easier or happier because of this, then I don’t give a shit what she looks like.
why has lindy been channeling Adrian Ryan’s writing style lately?
Lindy, you f*cking KILL me. Damn you.
The medical breakthroughs were seeing are awe inspiring. Proof of the existence of God, cause only he would give us humans the intelligence needed to come up with something like this. And i agree with Urgutha, if this gives her partial eyesight then i’m betting she doesn’t care what she looks like, and neither do eye. It’s only those who are superficial and fixed on looks that can’t see the magnificence in these sort of medical procedures.
– neither do I……..no pun intended lol.
*adores you*
Wait till she looks at herself in the mirror…hey, my tooth is missing!
Whatever, Loveschild. If God had wanted this lady to see, he would have sent Jesus or James Dobson over to cure her. What those doctors did was just not natural. Also not natural = butt sex.
Red Riding Hood: “grandma, what strange eyes you have”
Grandma: “the better to eat you with”
Maybe they can remove some of your fat ass and give you a brain, Lindy.
Lindy, I’m pretty certain I am in love with you. I don’t use these words lightly.
Sorry LC, but once again this is a case where yet another of “God’s miracles” requires neither a god nor a supernatural manifestation to have occurred.
Homo Sapiens made this possible not “God”, and Dr. Sawatari and his team deserves full credit for their extraordinary innovation and skill.
Good luck Ms Thornton, may you enjoy many happy years seeing your grandchildren grow up.
Lindy is a common drunk. Does that explain a lot?
Mattt: very good.
“NOM, NOM, NOM.” I almost died.
G-d to all previous millenia of the blind: FUCK YOU. It just wasn’t mankind’s time to discover artificial eyeballs yet. I could have revealed it to them (via prophesy!) but I just didn’t feel like it. You goddamned sinners… I saw you coveting that ox of your neighbors. Stay blind, assholes!