DALLAS — For decades, a Dallas man has been making prosthetic eyes for patients who've lost one, and his journey to helping others has a beginning that many of his patients can relate with.
Since the 1970s, Randy Trawnik has been changing the lives of patients who've been on the receiving end of terrible luck.
They all walk into his waiting room at Dallas Eye Prosthetics looking for some sort of salvation, some sort of answer or resolution that will make them whole again.
Many of them have lost an eye because of a horrible accident or due to a medical issue.
"There are no good stories walking into here," Trawnik said. "We can make a prosthetic eye from the beginning to the end in one whole day."
Trawnik is an ocularist and his eyes are world renowned.
He not only has an office in Dallas but one in Germany too. He's seen patients from more than 40 countries and has even done work with children who've lost eyes in war-torn countries.
On the day we met Trawnik, he was helping a woman who lost her eye while living in Iraq.
"No two eyes are alike, and each one is a work of art," Trawnik said.
And the process of creating an eye is just that--art. Contrary to popular belief, prosthetic eyes are made of plastic, not glass.
Artificial eyes have been crafted that way since World War II when injured soldiers needed them. It starts with an impression of the eye socket, and then Trawnik uses machines to carve and whittle them down to a comfortable fit.
Paint is used to match coloring, and tiny red threads are placed on the eye to create veins.
"We want to make them look as if we were never there," Trawnik said.
Trawnik takes pride in that statement. Near his desk, he keeps photo albums of patients he's worked with in the past.
And you'd be surprised at some of the pictures. A number include happy wedding photos, pageant winners, and models even.
When you lose an eye, Trawnik said that you don't just lose sight, but also self-confidence.
Samuel Nishimwe, 18, can attest to that. He grew up in East Africa and lost sight in his right eye when he was young due to a genetic defect.
"We didn't have the resources to treat it early on," Nishimwe said.
Nishimwe moved to America in 2008, but he didn't meet Trawnik until last year when his eye was finally removed and replaced.
"My biggest thing was self-confidence when moving to a new country," NIshimwe said. "It was like the self-esteem I was looking for my entire life."
It's not easy growing up without an eye, and 9-year-old Mason Smith can tell you all about it.
His left eye had to be removed after bumping into a friend on the trampoline.
"His head hit my eye and I just started screaming," Smith said.
Smith's mom said it wasn't an easy road to travel.
"Before the prosthetic, there were kids who were making fun of him," Cindy Smith said. "His eye didn't look real anymore."
But bullies lose their ammunition when everything seems normal.
"My friends all said that it looks so real," Smith said with a laugh.
"We don't have those bullying stories anymore," Cindy said.
For Trawnik, success stories like these are his mission or purpose, but he never knew he would be doing this until 1968.
That year, Trawnik had a terrible accident of his own during an ROTC training exercise that took his left eye.
A fellow soldier fired his weapon to close to Trawnik's head.
"It really changed my life," Trawnik said as he pulled out his own prosthetic. "Patients tell me that I don't know what it's like to have one eye and I say, 'Yes I do,'"
Trawnik said relating to patients and helping others who've lost an eye encouraged him to become an ocularist.
"I'm what they call a wounded healer," he said. "When you have a skill like this, you have an opportunity to change people's lives."
"This is more than just a piece of plastic."