In March, when the classic sign of retinoblastoma, cloudiness in the eye, led to his diagnosis, they hoped cutting-edge treatment would salvage the globe, possibly even with some vision.
Tyler underwent the treatment, three monthly infusions of chemotherapy directly into the eye's blood vessels. Although it killed the grape-sized tumor, destroying such a large malignancy also ruined the vital blood supply that the eye shared with the cancer. The eyeball literally shriveled, a condition called phthisis bulbi.
In August, the eye was removed by Carol Shields, the renowned ocular oncologist who directed Tyler's care at Wills in Center City. She placed an "orbital implant" in the socket, then attached the eye muscles to it.
The implant would serve as a foundation for the artificial eye, a round cap that forms the visible part of the replacement eye.
"I know this has been wrenching to your hearts, but you've done well," Shields told the family after examining the baby Tuesday. "Tyler has healed beautifully."
On the verge of walking, he had no apparent problem with his lack of stereo vision. Nor did he seem aware that his right upper eyelid drooped because of the hollow behind it, giving him a lopsided squint like Popeye or the late actor Peter Falk (who was also a retinoblastoma survivor).
By day's end, that Columbo squint would be gone. Eight blocks from Wills, Susan Frost Shore of LeGrand Associates Ocularists was set to fashion and fit Tyler's new eye - right before his parents' eyes.
In 1953, when Joseph A. LeGrand Sr. founded his eye-making business, the field was in flux.
Surgical implants were improving, which made even mediocre prostheses move better. The glass eye, long a specialty of German glassblowers, was becoming obsolete, a result of the postwar advent of American prosthetics made with acrylic plastic.
