Featured Image Credit: Carlos Barquero/AzmanL/Getty
There's nothing like the phrase 'bionic eye' to show just how rapidly technology is advancing.
A young girl in the UK called Myah Hauxwell recently managed to raise enough funds, together with her family, to fly to the US and have a bionic eye installed, right on the cutting edge of what's possible.
According to Metro UK, nine-year-old Hauxwell was born with severe microphthalmia, which caused one of her eyes to not develop properly during pregnancy, forcing her to have constant surgery growing up.
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Prosthetic eyes are serviceable, but they can't match what is now available on the private market, and a far more sophisticated bionic eye now has Hauxwell's eyes looking nearly indistinguishable.
The new eye features a dilating pupil and a digital iris that matches her natural one.
Best of all, Hauxwell also has two spares to use in case she needs it, one of which is a normal option, and the other is a far more standout "fun eye" as the family apparently calls it. This one has a love-heart-shaped pupil and a rainbow-colored glow-in-the-dark iris - these could help Hauxwell to own her eye problems and be proud of them, rather than just always covering them up.
None of this work came cheap, though. According to Metro UK, her family raised £15,000 ($19,000) to fund the trip to the US and the costs of the procedures and equipment.
Hauxwell's mother said: "All I was going off was hope, but this became a reality and started our lives again. I’m now forever grateful for everyone who supported us in getting there. I have got my baby girl back. She’s now enjoying life and just being a child. She has grown with so much confidence and has started a new school as I removed her from her old one due to bullying."
Hauxwell's fundraising (and her preceding struggles) even caught the attention of England's women's football team, and her personal hero Jill Scott sent her a signed shirt.
While bionic eye might make you think that the eye would actually restore one's sight, we're not quite at that point yet - sight restoration might be possible and widely available one day, but at this point, bionic eyes are still more like extremely high-tech prosthetics.
You can see the pictures on Metro UK here.
