When the natural lubricant was gone, Juwan’s eye started to “melt away,” and a 4mm hole appeared. Doctors had thought he would lose his eye entirely.
“He basically lost all feeling in the eye by that point, and he was unable to see anything because the herpes had just caused so much damage,” Michelle said.
It indicated that the brain had stopped communicating with the eye because it no longer recognized it. The eye dried out when the gel that had been shielding it vanished.
Juwan’s parents flew him to Cape Town for specialized therapy in order to give their son a chance.
In the hopes of saving his cornea, the toddler had amnion graft surgery.
The family is preparing for another major operation in April to move nerves from his leg to his eye, and his eyelids were stitched together as a precaution.
