It’s no secret that most parents will do just about anything for their kids. Dwayne Collins is no different.
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His 3-year-old daughter, Liberty, was born with two rare eye conditions. One caused her to be completely blind in her right eye, and the other one made it so that one of her eyeballs was small and disproportionate.
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Enduring visit after visit with doctors and specialists can be a lot for anyone, let alone a 3-year-old. According to her dad, some “terrible experiences” with doctors who really didn’t have much background working with kids left Liberty feeling overwhelmed, or in tremendous pain with each visit. And it caused some major stress for everyone.
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Feeling like the doctors weren’t on their side, Dwayne was determined to do more for his daughter.
“I couldn’t handle it anymore, so I started teaching myself,” he said.
So he turned to an unlikely place for support—YouTube.
“I got straight onto the computer and started ordering the basic machines, paint supplies and materials that I would need to make her an eye myself.”
Watching YouTube videos by John Pacey-Lowrie, an expert with 35+ years of experience creating prosthetic eyes, Dwayne was able to get an understanding of the construction.
He purchased the basic resources himself, but was lucky enough to have a kind precision engineer as a neighbor, who helped him with some of the more advanced technology.
“It was a bit hard to get them myself and they were pretty expensive, so he donated his time and materials for Liberty.”
It took about three months, but with a lot of practice, and “a lot of failures,” Dwayne was able to construct a decent prosthetic eye for his daughter.
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The hardest part was fitting the cover into Liberty’s eye socket, an experience that Dwayne admits is not a pleasant task for anyone. But his creation worked, and Liberty no longer had eyes that looked different directions, or weren’t proportional to each other.
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Since doing his research, and studying every possible detail of John Pacey-Lowrie’s YouTube videos, Dwayne believes that Ocular Prosthetics is his calling. He’s enrolled in University courses to further his newfound career path, and the family has created a Go Fund Me page for support.
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Praise God for this hard-working daddy who turned a labor of love for his precious daughter into a lifelong calling that can help many more people like Liberty. 💛
