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On Independence Day 2020 , Nick Kharufeh was enjoying a firework display on the street near his auntie ’s house in California .
Then , within a split second , the playfulness turn back .
Nick Kharufeh is one of the first groups of patients in the U.S. to have received a new type of stem cell therapy to treat blinding damage to the cornea. He is pictured here after the procedure.
A obstinate firework meandered off course and burst on the dry land near Kharufeh , and bits of the explosive coin the cornea of his left optic . The accident left Kharufeh — who was 23 years old , and six years into grooming to be a commercial pilot at the time — completely blind in one eye .
" My dad was justly outside [ the household ] and it was dark out , so he could n’t fully narrate what had happened , " Kharufeh say Live Science . " And I was like , ' I palpate like I ca n’t see out of my leftover middle . ' "
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Nick was six years into training for his dream job to be a commercial pilot when a firework injury left him blind in one eye.
At the hospital , doctors ab initio fear that Kharufeh ’s eye had been entirely destroyed and would need to be take out . However , after cleaning the rubble from his eye , a specializer see that away from his cornea , the rest of Kharufeh ’s eye remained intact .
What followed was month of treatments , involve waking up multiple time in the nighttime to apply medicated eye cliff , taking drugs to manage the pain , and undergoing a brace of surgeries , which included clean house up the remaining debris and an unsuccessful attempt at reconstructing his palpebra .
" It was a uncut few months , " Kharufeh said . " I did n’t leave the house , I did n’t tell anybody what happened because I was kind of chagrined about it — because your eyes are the window to your soul , so I felt like my identity was just gone . "
(Image credit: Future)
The experimental therapy — bid " cultivated autologous limbal epithelial cell transplantation " ( CALEC ) — work by take stem cells from a patient ’s healthy center , growing them into sheets of cell in the lab and then transplanting them into the damaged eye . Once implanted , these novel sheets of cells take form a surface on which normal tissue can grow back .
Kharufeh adjudicate to make the move to Boston with his mom to take part in the tribulation , which was set forth the travel along January in 2021 .
" At first I was hesitating because they had to do surgical operation on my good eye , so I was really nervous , " Kharufeh allege .
(Image credit: Nick Kharufeh)
But then , forthwith after the first of two transplantation , Kharufeh saw positively charged results .
He remembers the moment when he walked into his Airbnb in Massachusetts and could see the bright gentle colour of his comforter . At that time , he was about eight months out from his firework injury .
Nick ’s middle some two age after take in his first stem cubicle transplant at Mass Eye and Ear .
" I ’ll never block [ that mo ] , " Kharufeh said . " And it sounds so little . It ’s just like , ' Okay , a little depressed comforter . ' But in that moment that was everything to me , and I literally cried for so long . "
Prior to Kharufeh get the new CALEC therapy , the discussion had initially been tested ina little clinical trialof just four patients with corneal damage . That trial , whose outcome were shared in 2018 , marked the first - ever test of a stem jail cell therapy for the eyes in the U.S. , the enquiry team say at the time .
Now , at age 28 and five years out from his injury , Kharufeh still hold out in Boston where he work in sales for a travel company . The visual sense from his odd eye is not sodding , but he says that the injury does n’t have him issues during his everyday animation . For instance , if he were to extend his right eye with his hand , he would still be capable to locate object and voyage himself around .
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In April , he intends to execute the Boston Marathon to help elevate money for Mass Eye and Ear .
" I believe it ’s given me a whole new living , " Kharufeh said of the root word - cell therapy . " Now it ’s the point where I can actually sense normal . "
This article is for informational design only and is not meant to offer aesculapian advice .
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