Eye Contact

Conor McLean leans forward and takes out his left eye. The exposed fleshy cavity looks like the inside of a cheek. He gives the plastic replica to Raymond Peters, a master ocular anaplastologist who made the prosthetic eye.

"How's it been feeling?" Peters says, inspecting the nickel-sized saucer.

"It sits too high," Conor says, his left eyelid closed to prevent cool air from touching the sensitive bare socket.

Peters inspects the artificial eye under a light to see where he can trim the acrylic to adjust the fit. "Right here we can take some off," he says, rubbing an edge of the deep brown and white replica.

He takes a drill and begins to grind. Minuscule shards of white plastic fall to the carpet like dandruff. Peters' thick fingers delicately rotate the upper portion of the eye. The 77-year-old has been making eyes like this one for nearly 60 years.

As the drill buzzes, Conor, 13, leans back in his seat. Relaxed. He's known Peters for more than half of his life. While many young teens might wallow in self-doubt over the loss of an eye, Conor accepts the prosthetic as an organic part of his body.

The Bonita Springs resident lost his eye when he was only 4 months old to retnoblastoma, a cancer that produces tumors on the eye. He got his first prosthetic when he was 15 months old and has had nearly 15 since. Peters has made five of them, since meeting Conor in 2000. Each costs between $4,000 and $8,000, and most of that is covered by insurance.

Children like Conor go through an average of one eye per year as they grow, he says.

Peters studies the eye of client Peter Wolf of East Naples while crafting a new prosthetic eye in his office in North Naples. Close attention to minuscule details, color and hue are crafted into each of Peters' prosthetic eyes, noses and ears. Photo: David Albers

"Conor probably had cancer in the womb," says his mother Karen, as she sits with her son in Peters' office. "We were lucky that we caught it before it hit his optical nerve and went into his brain. That would have killed him."

The eye has given Conor a sense of confidence and has helped shape a unique friendship with Peters.

"I've known the boy for half his life," Peters says. "We've developed a father-son kind of a relationship. I don't interfere with his life, but when he's in my office, my jurisdiction, I tell it to him straight."

Conor's own father, Gene, has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

"Conor feels a burden and a fear," says his mother, Karen, sitting in the room with Conor as Peters works. "He starts to think about his own cancer returning. He's such a strong boy, but this is tough."

"How is your father?" Peters asks.

"He has his good days and his bad ones," Conor says.

Conor's bond with Peters seems more than that of an eye-maker and a teen. Peters sees himself as a loving ally to a young friend. Conor sees Peters partly as an eccentric craftsman, but mostly a buddy to hang and talk with.

	Raymond Peters holds an example of a client's ear casting, which he will use to make a lifelike replacement. Photo: David Albers

As the two talk about Conor's father, it's apparent Peters makes more than prosthetics. He forges bonds with clients in an effort to make them cosmetically whole, and emotionally strong.

Peters also makes prosthetic noses and ears from synthetic plastics, similar to what Hollywood makeup artists use to create gruesome scars and masks like the one Robin Williams wore in "Mrs. Doubtfire." He recently learned to work with a new more durable plastic that looks identical to skin.

Yet, of his nearly 250 clients, more than 90 percent of the cases are eyes. Most people lose ears and noses from cancer, Peters says. "They end up dying from complications before they get to me, so most of my work is on eyes."

At an age when most of his peers are enjoying retirement, Peters continues to make sure his clients - scarred from bouts of cancer, jabs to the eye and the occasional barfight - have a chance at a normal life, or at least one in which they look normal.

Peters is one of an estimated 300 people in the world trained to make medical grade replicas of eyes, noses and ears, according to the American Society of Ocularists and the American Anaplastology Association, organizations that track and market the procedures.

"It's been one of the most rewarding careers," Peters says. "To know you've helped, not hundreds, but thousands - that's a reward you can't buy."

Peters looks at eyes differently.

He describes them as though they are a pieces of art, framed by a retina, cornea and sclera. They may be brown with a light golden hue. Hazel with and under layer of green. Mahogany with a tint of red.

Each has particular characteristics. Perhaps a sclera, the white of an eye, blotted with a slight yellow glaze of fat. Or a retina with stark white stripes.

"My eyes look like their eyes, see? No difference." he says, comparing his work to nature's creation.

Peters makes an adjustment for 13-year-old Conor McLean of Bonita Springs during an office visit.. Photo: David Albers

Peters began learning how to make prosthetics in 1946, as a 19-year-old dental student at Georgetown University while he was also serving as a U.S. Navy officer in Washington D.C.

"Making an eye is essentially the same as making a crown molding," he says. "All I do is introduce the element of art when I paint the iris. You have to be an artist if you want to do a good job."

In 1948 Peters was appointed to a military research team dedicated to developing acrylic eyes to replace the traditional glass form.

"We figured out how to put color and three-dimensional depth into eyes, see, to reproduce a nearly identical replica," he says.

"We were getting a lot of cases from WWII, see, and the glass that was being used came from Germany, which cut off its supply during the war. We needed a more durable material."

The military and ocularists continue to have an intimate connection, says Dr. Tom Mader, an eye surgeon at Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage.

Mader, along with five other doctors, studied the rates of ocular injuries in Iraq in 2004.

"Ocular injuries account for about 10 percent of all injuries," Mader says of the war. "Some of these guys are so badly mutilated, the only chance many have is an ocularist."

He continues: "Cosmetically, everyone wants to look as best as they can. If you can have an eye that looks real, the psychological benefits are invaluable."

	Peters makes an adjustment for 13-year-old Conor McLean of Bonita Springs during an office visit. Photo: David Albers

Today, there are no schools that teach the art of making prosthetic eyes, Peters says. In order to learn the craft, people must enter into an apprenticeship with a professional. "This is a very hard culture to break into," he says. "Many ocularists forcefully try to keep the knowledge in the family."

Peters says he's broken tradition by teaching five other men how to do it. "It's important that there are qualified people working out there," he says.

After graduating dental school, he continued his practice for nearly 50 years in Baltimore. In 1996 Peters was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and he underwent surgery for it at Johns Hopkins. "I'm a survivor," he says. "I have a lot of empathy for people who have been afflicted by cancer."

His struggle allows him to relate to the experiences of clients like Conor and his father, he says. "I deal with clients who have cancer all the time. I suffered for it, so I know what it's like."

Peters decided to retire after his illness. He and his wife, Susan, spent some time in Palm Beach and eventually moved to Vero Beach.

The relaxation and unstructured lifestyle, however, proved boring. "I got so depressed. I knew something was wrong," Peters says, "I actually went to a psychiatrist. He said, 'You're a caretaker and you're used to taking care of people. You need to go back to work.'"

He continues. "I need to be here to make sure these individuals accept their losses as normal. There appearance has to be normal and it's my job to allow them to enjoy life and cover up deficiencies."

In 2000, Peters decided to get back into the business, when he moved to North Naples.

Raymond Peters visits with 13-year-old patient Conor McLean of Bonita Springs (right) after making an adjustment to his new prosthetic eye on Saturday. To ensure a polished final product, Peters usually meets with his clients several times during the prosthetic crafting process. Photo: David Albers

"I only work by appointment now, but I still have clients travel from all over the East Coast here. All over the world," he says.

Over the years, Peters has crafted eyes for an estimated 22,000 people, he says. His clients have included a German beauty queen, a member of the Saudi royal family, and a Nigerian governor's son.

The acrylic eye starts as four basic pieces, including a wax mold, a 11.5-millimeter diameter disc for the iris, a clear button-sized disc with a black spot for an pupil, and a pallet of acrylic paints. Once assembled, the pieces are compressed under a high-pressure press and heated at 159 degrees until they form one solid eye, Peters says.

To replicate the blood shot tributaries that run in all eyes Peters uses fine red silk threads, which he lays on the glue glazed eye with tweezers.

The process takes an average of three to four days, Peters says.

"Come here, let me see that eye," he says recently to his patient, Peter Wolf.

Wolf lost his eye due to a series of injuries - including a tennis ball to the face, and most recently a bar fight. The professional house painter is also an artist. He's known Peters for nearly five years, and says he still impressed at the artistry and craftsmanship of Peters' eyes.

"These eyes are very durable," Peters says. "They'll last up to four years before they become saturated with natural body fluids. Even though the plastics are smooth, they're porous, see?"

	Raymond Peters visits with 13-year-old patient Conor McLean of Bonita Springs (right) after making an adjustment to his new prosthetic eye on Saturday. To ensure a polished final product, Peters usually meets with his clients several times during the prosthetic crafting process. Photo: David Albers

After Peters gets a good idea of the characteristics of Wolf's blue eye, he pulls a fine tipped paintbrush from a cup on his work table. He dips the brush into a glob of acrylic paint, set up on a candy-bar sized pallet, and takes the tip to the small black iris disc.

He starts in the center and pulls the paint to the edge, as though he were tracing a thin piece of hair. He rotates the disc - always delicate strokes - until the disc looks like a faint blue starburst.

As Peters glides the brush, Wolf looks at a series of paintings of pheasants darting over wheat-colored grass.

"I did those," Peters says. The paintings of tawny stalks and fine feathers exhibit the same attention to detail that he puts into Wolf's iris.

The walls of Peters' North Naples home are also with his paintings.

In the study, there's a Bengal tiger resting in the bush. In the foyer, white cranes peck through green plants. While each focuses on a different animal, the unifying theme is the piercing eyes he has given each subject. The tiger's stark yellow eyes seem to stalk you as you walk through the home.

Peters moves forward to have another look at Wolf.

"You're getting a Cadillac job today," Peters tells him.

Peters' nose is just inches from the patient. "I ever tell you about my friend the priest and the rabbi going into a bar," Peters starts to tell a joke. The ocularist tries to keep the mood light when he's with clients - to keep the focus off of the physical trauma prosthetics represent.

Raymond Peters visits with 13-year-old patient Conor McLean of Bonita Springs (right) after making an adjustment to his new prosthetic eye on Saturday. To ensure a polished final product, Peters usually meets with his clients several times during the prosthetic crafting process. Photo: David Albers

Peters views himself as part-entertainer, part-psychologist and part-healer.

"I get patients to talk about other things to distract them from their eyes," he says, "this is such an intimate setting, people open up to me and my job is just as much about listening as it is about making a product. If you have a chance to make someone whole. Well, that's indescribable."

Wolf feels the plastic replica is more a public service than a personal need.

"This just makes other people feel comfortable," he says, "I'm fine with not having an eye, but people I meet on the street might not be. This just allows me to interact and not freak other people out."

Back with Conor, Peters tells the teen about when he used to steal fruit from his neighbor's farm.

"When I was your age we would sneak over there, fill up our shirts with the stuff and run home," he says. Conor laughs. "We were wretches."

When Conor lost his eye, doctors inserted a small porous ball of hydroxyapatite into his empty eye cavity. The coral-type sphere attached to his muscles, enabling movement. Then doctors placed a small sheet of skin donated from a cadaver over the ball, which became the base for his artificial eye.

Today Conor's left eye tracks almost in sync with his right. Despite having perfect vision in his right eye he wears glasses for protection.

He rarely gets sensitive about the loss of his eye, he says.

	Peters makes an adjustment for 13-year-old Conor McLean of Bonita Springs during an office visit. Photo: David Albers

"Most people have no idea it's fake," he says, a smile capturing his face, "and a lot of girls think it's really cool."

Because he lost the eye at such a young age, Conor has developed full depth perception, he says. He loves to play golf, baseball and soccer.

"I play goalie," he says, explaining that he likes the challenge and the pressure of the position.

On a recent evening while Conor's mom, Karen, watches her son play soccer, she says she's constantly inspired by her son's strength. Conor is the middle of two brothers.

"I am just glad this happened to Conor," she says, talking about the loss of his eye. "I mean, wait, not that I would wish this on anyone. Conor is able to deal with the traumas of life better than most people."

Back in Peters' office, the ocularist hands the teen a newly trimmed eye.

"Here, let's see how this fits," Peters says, putting the eye into Conor's socket. "How's that feel?"

"It pinches a little bit," Conor says.

"I'll have to make another finer adjustment, how 'bout you come in next week," Peters says.

"Thanks for everything," Karen McLean says, as she hugs Peters.

Peter walks over and takes Conor by the shoulder, he looks up and smiles at Karen. "I hope your father gets better, Conor. If there's anything I can do, you let me know."

Karen softly nods a non-verbal thank you.

After they leave, Peters closes his office door and starts to clean the white dust dotting the floor.

"I want the boy to succeed," he says as he cleans. "I'll do anything I can to help him. Make sure he goes to college. I'll even pay if I have to. He's coming up on a rough spot and young people don't always know how to deal with those emotions."

"In Conor I see a young man who needs a lot of help relative to what's going to happen with the loss of his father," Peters says.

"Anyway, my friendship is more important than any eye I can make."