An eight-year-old fan of the Toronto Blue Jays has revealed that he’ll be supporting his favorite team with a custom prosthetic eye.
Logan Dorna’s left eye was removed when he was six months old, after he was diagnosed with retinoblastoma.
Matthew Milne, an ocularist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, personally designed Logan’s eye.
Children in Canada receive a new glass eye every two years, until they are eighteen, and Logan told the Canadian Press that he wanted his new eye to be “special,” since he was getting it near the playoffs.
“I wanted to get the special eye because I like playing baseball and I like watching it too,” he said.
The Blue Jays logo has been painted on the top of the eye, and delicate red seams, like the ones on a baseball, have been drawn on, too.
This week, Logan’s favorite team advanced to the World Series for the first time since 1993, where they will face the LA Dodgers.
The iris is golden, and a second painting on the top of the eye references The Legend of Zelda, one of Logan’s favorite video games.
Logan’s mom, Taline, says her son has started wearing his custom-designed eye to his favorite team’s games.
Taline told the Canadian Press that Logan, whose favorite position is as an outfielder, “believes in his soul that it’s giving them a little bit of extra luck.”
She added that she hopes her son’s pride in his artificial eye helps other children feel more confident about themselves.
“That’s what we’ve always wanted for him … no social stigma attached to having a prosthetic eye because it is such a visible difference,” Taline said. “We want him to always feel confident and not ashamed of who he is because it’s part of his identity.”
Milne added that he believes designing a custom eye can help support children with conditions such as retinoblastoma.
“When you’re dealing with a very kind of adult issue like retinoblastoma, I want to always give kids the opportunity to kind of customize something for themselves, make it fun for them,” he said.
Although having one eye can mean his “depth perception is really off,” his mom says that hitting the balls gives him a “boost of confidence.”
Logan’s prosthetic eye is connected to his ocular muscles, allowing it to move in sync with his brown seeing eye.
He does have a glass eye that is painted brown, but Taline told the Toronto Sun that her son wants to wear the gold one every day.
“He would like to wear it every day and we would totally encourage whatever he wants,” she said. “He really does feel comfortable about it because he really does feel like it’s a talking point with people.
“Like he actually will start talking about it which is really great. This is what we wanted.”
Taline has written a children’s book named The Extraordinary Eye, which she published in 2021.
