News Coverage
June 24, 2004
Calgary Herald
Eye Surgery Lifted Girl's Curtain of Fog
Leanne Dohy
When Joanne Froese was a young girl, the only way to find her mom at the mall was to look for a red jacket. Congenital cataracts made faces, storybooks—everything—a fog of muted colours. She couldn't see what the teacher had written on the chalkboard, or spot her friends on the playground.
"If we didn't go out together at lunchtime, I'd never be able to find them," she remembers. "Their faces were just part of the blur."
Common practice at the time would have been to remove her clouded lenses and leave nothing in their place, essentially blinding her. Instead, Froese's parents brought her and her little sister, Laura—who was also born with cataracts—to Calgary surgeon Howard Gimbel. In a then-controversial move, Gimbel replaced the girls' natural lenses with implanted artificial lenses.
Sixteen years later, Froese, her sister and three other young adults who received the intra-ocular lens implants are the subjects of a long-term followup study into the effectiveness of the procedure.
Hawaiian researcher Dr. Malcolm Ing met and examined the five former patients at Gimbel's clinic Wednesday, pronouncing the procedure and obvious success.
"The data on the long-term effectiveness of intra-ocular implantation has been regrettably scanty," Ing said during a luncheon reuniting the grown-up patients with the clinic staff who cared for them.
"What I saw today in examining these young people is that children can tolerate the lenses quite well, with no major complications."
Froese struggles to express her gratitude for the surgeries. The most stunning moment of her life occurred when the bandage and patch were removed from her left eye, the first to be corrected.
"It was a sunny day, and we were sitting in the kitchen. My mom pulled back the patch, and I saw her face for the very first time," the 25-year-old said, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I just remember saying, 'Mom, you're so beautiful!' all I'd ever seen before was a blurry face and curly hair."
She remembers dashing around the house afterward, astounded by all there was to see. She still delights in precise, detailed work, and now works as a dental assistant.
Gimbel, now 70 and a world-renowned expert in cataract and refractive surgery, said reuniting with his patients was an emotional experience.
"There were a lot of people who thought we should wait before using the implants in children because of the potential for long-term problems," said Gimbel, who has performed more than 130 pediatric cataract surgeries over the past 30 years.
"I had been doing implant surgery in adults for some time, and had been able to observe the effects. I had confidence in the procedure and the guidance of my mentors in Europe."