Corneal lens transplants have brought light and color to life for a rural Hastings woman who had multiple eye problems. "I had nothing to lose," she said, and everything to gain.

July 19, 2011 at 7:26PM

Cindy Hood took a stroll on her property in rural Hastings with her granddaughter Emma. She can now walk wherever she’d like after surgery at Mayo Clinic that corrected a rare eye condition called aniridia, the congenital absence of the iris. (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

It's the little things -- a smile or colorful flowers -- that are so delightful to Cindy Hood. At 54, she can see so much more than ever before.

"For the first time I could see my grandchildren. It was really overwhelming," said Hood, of rural Hastings. "It's neat to see somebody's smile."

Before her corneal lens transplants, Hood said her two granddaughters were shadowy shapes. She couldn't see well enough to walk alone safely. Now she can walk unassisted and see foods and signs in supermarkets.

"Food really looks different to me. It's so colorful." She no longer avoids buffet-style restaurants because "now I can go up and pick my own food."

Hood's surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester treated a rare condition called aniridia, the congenital absence of the iris. The iris is the colored part of the eye which moderates incoming light.

Medicine and technology have come a long way since Hood had her first corneal transplant on her right eye at age 9 at the University of Minnesota hospital in 1966. "It didn't work. It was traumatizing," she recalled. A second attempt fared no better, and she lost much of the vision in her right eye, she said.

As a girl she was teased and picked last for kickball teams, she recalled. To avoid bright lights, she peered through slit eyes or shut them. At 16, she developed cataracts and glaucoma, which caused fluid buildup and painful pressure. She took many eye drops daily for decades to relieve the pain.

"It seemed like all I did was beg and pray and hope," she recalled. "I got angry at God and my parents." She drifted away from God, but "in my heart, I knew He was all I had to get me through it."

"It was so hard for her to go outside because of the sunlight, so she didn't want to go out," recalled her older sister, Marcy Ries, who lives half a mile down the road near Miesville.

About four years ago, Hood's glaucoma pain drops quit working, and for the past two years Hood needed someone to help whenever she left home. She was depressed and "had a lot of pain. It wore me down and I didn't want to do another day," she said.

Despite her fear of more surgery, Hood started talking to eye doctors at the university and the Mayo Clinic. After a family meeting with her six siblings, she settled on Dr. Keith Baratz, a surgeon and ophthalmology research chair at Mayo.

"He was really compassionate and answered a lot of my fears," she said. "He said it was a very high-risk surgery." But he also said that "if I let it go I would lose my [limited] sight and still have the pain. I had nothing to lose."

Baratz said Hood's combination of aniridia, uncontrolled glaucoma and opaque, white corneas was rare. It cost more than $30,000 to treat, about half for the fees of her three surgeons, he said.

Her right eye, which had more damage than the left, received a plastic corneal lens wrapped in human tissue in February, he said. Surgeons implanted a more common human donor cornea in the left eye in early June. Her new corneas let in light and help focus it, he said.

Ophthalmologist Cheryl Khanna, inserted a tiny valve and tubes to drain eye fluids and relieve the pressure.

Now, not only can she see, but the pain is finally gone, Hood said.

"It's unbelievable. It's almost a miracle," said Ries, her sister, who prayed with friends during the surgery. "She doesn't have that dreadful pain."

Before the surgery, Hood said she could barely recognize people as blurry shapes. She clearly remembers seeing Baratz the day after her June surgery.

"He took the bandage off and it was totally amazing because everything looked so bright and vivid and clear and colorful," she said. "It's an answered prayer. I just can't get done thanking God."

Hood takes drops to help her eyes accept the implanted lenses. Baratz said infection of her plastic cornea is a lifelong risk.

But now she is reading large-print books and can see, and not just listen to, General Hospital, her favorite TV show.

She's been studying photos of her two sons and two granddaughters to catch up on how they looked as they grew.

"I can play cards again with my granddaughters," she said. "I can see the patterns on my dinner plates and my curtains. Flowers are really gorgeous. Before, I didn't give them a hoot."

She said she hopes aniridia treatment will continue to improve so her son Grant, 23, and granddaughter Emma, 7, who have the same condition, can benefit from surgery when they are ready. Her older son also had successful corneal transplants.

Jim Hood said his wife gets up earlier now, cooks more and brushes their four dogs.

"I used to help her in the grocery and read the [aisle] shelves," he said. "Now she can go up curbs without help and see things I never thought she could see."

She can even see things she's not supposed to. "I caught him sneaking Ho-Ho [cakes] into the shopping cart!" she said.

Jim Adams • 952-707-9996