“Yes, why not? But again. This is the important question.” He emphasizes those two words: important question. “Why do you want eyesight?”
“I think it would make my life better. Like, you know, reading and stuff. Have you heard of the ‘tyranny of the visual’?”
“Yes, of course. Since so many of us in today’s world rely on sight because of the mass media, living in our society is now more difficult for the blind.”
“Right. So I think having vision—that is, eyesight—would improve my life.”
He pauses and then says, “Will, do you know why I came to this country?”
“No.”
“I have lived here for twenty years. I moved to America from Italy because PU has one of the best medical research programs in my field in the entire world. So I want to live here for a better career so I can give the better life for my family. So I understand this. When you say you want the better life, I understand this.”
I don’t say anything. The opera singer’s voice shakes with vibrato.
“And I am one of the few surgeons who practice this surgery because I think it can offer a better life. Another reason humans have evolved to rely on eyesight as the primary sense is because it has the best spatial resolution.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t think I know what that is.”
“Say you are in a restaurant, listening to another table. Easy enough to accomplish. But if you try to listen to two different conversations at different tables simultaneously, you find the limitation of hearing. You can’t concentrate on both at once. But a person with eyesight can see and process hundreds of objects and colors at the same time. This is spatial resolution.”
He pauses and then says, as if closing his argument, “So this is why I think eyesight can give you the better life.”
I ask, “Can you help me see, Dr. Bianchi?”
He thinks for a moment. “It is a possibility,” he concludes, in a tone that suggests I’ve cleared his first hurdle. “But several things stand in our way.”
“Like what?”
“First, we must get the B-scan. To see if your congenital blindness makes you a candidate for the stem cell operation.”
“Okay. A B-scan. Then what?”
“Then we must find a stem cell donor.”
“If we do, that’s it? Then I can see?”
“If only, Will, if only. No, then we must give your eyes a month to heal. After this, then we look for a corneatransplant donor.”
“So there are two surgeries?” I ask.
“Yes. First you need retinal stem cells. After that, we wait one month for you to heal. Then we have a two-week window. During that time, you can get corneas.”
“So we need to find a donor? Um, how about one of my parents?”
He chuckles. “No, you cannot ask someone to do this for you. Not a living person. You need an organ donor, a cadaver who is recently deceased due to traumatic accident. But with the eyes intact. And for this donor we can only wait.”
“What if we don’t find a donor within the two weeks?”
“Donors are relatively easy to find. Sadly, accidents happen every day. And rarely are the eyes damaged.”
“But if it did happen? If two weeks passed without us finding a donor?”
“If we miss the window, this is not a surgery we can do for another time. You would be staying blind forever.”
Yikes.
I’m not sure how to take this. “Okay, let’s assume we find a donor, and I have the operation. Then I can see? Is that it?”
He chuckles again. “Oh, no, Will, that is only the beginning. After the operation, this is when the real work must begin.”
“What do you mean?”
“Because you have never had eyesight, your visual cortex, the region of the brain that processes sight, has developed differently. If the visual cortex is stimulated with magnetic waves, the person with eyesight sees a flash of light. But for the person born blind, when the visual cortex is stimulated with the magnetic waves, he feels a tingling on his tongue or his fingers. Do you understand why?”
“No,” I admit.
“The brain rewires itself to solve the problems it is given. This is called neuroplasticity. In a blind person, who does not need the visual cortex for processing eyesight, the visual cortex will instead be used to process taste or touch.”
“Is that reversible?” I ask. “Would I be able to use that part of my brain for eyesight?”
“This is what we hope. I would provide you therapy and monitor your progress, but mostly it would just take time. You would be like, if I may say so, a newborn baby. After the surgery. You would have to learn how to see.”
“But I could learn? With practice?”
“Hopefully. There are a number of risks. You may also lapse into confusion for some time, or for all time.”
That catches me off guard. “I’m sorry. Did you say ‘for all time’?”
“It is a possibility,” he says reluctantly.
“Like, for the rest of my life? You mean I might go crazy?”