Though he has yet to celebrate his firs birthday, little Sam Clanton has endured more medical procedures than many people experience in a lifetime.  Born eight weeks premature on February 11, 2004 and weighing just under four pounds, he was diagnosed in his first week of life with a rare genetic eye disorder - scleracornea totalis or sclera cornea.

“The first day I knew something was wrong with his eyes.  He wouldn’t look at me when he was feeding,” said his mother, Yvonne Clanton.  “His eyes were clouded over with layers of white and robin’s egg blue, like he had cataracts.  ”Sam could only sense light and darkness.  He was essentially blind.

“You have to use your eyes for the brain to ‘learn’ to see,” said Craig McKeown, who became Sam’s pediatric ophthalmologist at Bascom Palmer.  “To have normal vision, this problem needs to be corrected early in infancy.  ”At first the Clantons were hesitant to put their newborn through the trauma of a corneal transplant.  But without the procedure, Sam had no chance of having any vision.   Only two weeks after Sam’s originally scheduled date of birth, a first corneal transplant was performed with tissue supplied by the Florida Lions Eye Bank.  It would be the Eye Bank’s youngest corneal recipient on record.

“Right away, we noticed a difference,” said Yvonne.  “He started following us with his eyes.  ”Three months later, Sam was back for another transplant, this time in his left eye.

There are many signs of improvement, many reasons for hope.  “Without the tissue provided by the Florida Lions Eye Bank, we know Sam would not have any vision,” said Jon.  He recently described an encouraging trip to Disney World.  “Sam was mesmerized by the fireworks,” said Jon.  “He was shrieking with joy at the sight of the exploding colors in the sky.”

In what may be a glimpse into the future of corneal surgery, the Florida Lions Eye Bank has provided a combination of corneal stem cells and corneal tissue for transplantation, giving hope to patients who have suffered serious eye damage and vision loss.

Dr. Nolana C. Bell, an anesthesiologist from Seattle, Washington traveled to Miami for just such a procedure, temporarily restoring her sight in one eye. Dr. Bell had suffered a serious of progressive setbacks in her vision that began with an abrasion - and then scarring - of her cornea from a contact lens. Hoping to regain full vision, she underwent a corneal transplant. While recovering from the surgery, she developed a serious infection in her eye that ultimately caused blindness in that eye and damaged her corneal stem cells. Corneal stem cells are unique in the human body, existing only in the limbal region between the cornea and the conjuctiva. The cells keep the cornea healthy and without them vision is usually lost.

How are stem cells damaged? In addition to serious infections such as Dr. Bell’s case, chemical or acid burns are the most common cause. In rare cases, traumatic injuries can damage the cells. Even worse, most cornea transplants fail if the stem cells are damaged.

“I knew that for a cornea transplant to be successful, I would also need a stem cell transplant,” she said.

On the internet, Dr. Bell had read that in the other corner of the country, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute was doing stem cell research. She sent an email to Bascom Palmer and learned that Dr. Scheffer Tseng, a longtime faculty member, had just left the Institute to go into private practice.

“I am forever thankful to Dr. Tseng, the Florida Lions Eye Bank and the generous people who donated the corneas and stem cells,” said Dr. Bell.

Persistent Fetal Vascu lature is big name for such a small boy. But that was the name of the eye disorder that was affecting newborn David Candelario’s left eye. The pediatric ophthalmic specialists at Miami Children’s Hospital told his mother Marlene that perhaps 20 babies born in Miami-Dade each year suffer from PFV. But David’s PFV turned out to be much worse than most other cases.

“We could tell the first day there was something wrong. When I held him I could see one eye was smaller than the other and the color was different,” Marlene said.

When he was three weeks old, tiny David had the first of what would be many surgeries on his left eye. Dr. Clive Howard found that while the retina seemed healthy, the PFV had caused several severe abnormalities in the eye, the most serious was an unusually dense cataract that proved difficult to remove. “In my 30 years in ophthalmology, I had not seen a cataract that hard, almost like it was cartilage.” David had no vision in the affected eye and he was fitted with a small pair of glasses to help him focus with his right eye.

Little David’s struggle with his eye condition has been eased by the strong support he and Marlene receive from a loving extended family that includes cousins, uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents.

But David, like any infant, was rapidly growing into a toddler and this growth caused other complications. The affected eye didn’t keep pace with the rest of his body and remained undersized. This was affecting the development of the bone structure of the eye socket and would only worsen with time. For this reason and because the repeated surgeries were unable to give David vision in the eye, the decision was made to remove it just before the boy’s first birthday.

A prosthetic eye, made of acrylic, was wrapped in donor scleral tissue provided by the Florida Lions Eye Bank. Now approaching his second birthday, David is a normal toddler, playing with his toys and chasing a ball in the yard. He recently was fitted for his second prosthesis, a process that will be repeated as he continues to grow into adulthood. “He is a happy child, full of love,” said Marlene. “I think he will have a bright future.”

When Joe Wascura sketches out his long list of lifetime accomplishments - from being a pioneering Peace Corps volunteer to running the New York City marathon to raising a family and his career success as an accountant and controller, he is quick to point out that none of it would have been possible without several corneal transplants that have kept his debilitating keratoconus in check for nearly 30 years.  In 1976, Joe’s ophthalmologist told him his deteriorating condition left no options other than a corneal transplant. Dr. Joe Kurstin performed the surgery with tissue supplied by the Florida Lions Eye Bank, then in its 14th year.  The cornea remains complication-free and crystal clear 27 years later.

“I was 26 at the time and my right eye was fine,” Joe said.  “But little did I know that the new cornea would continue to serve me so well when my right eye failed me nearly 20 years down the road.”

Joe recently learned that his 25-year-old son, a mechanical engineer for Boston Scientific, also has keratoconus.  “The doctors say it is not hereditary, but in my case it certainly has been,” Joe said.  But his son has an excellent role model in his father - someone who continues to inspire as he conquers new heights despite his eye condition.

Every weekend, Joe joins a large-group of colorfully-dressed riders for a briskly paced morning trip out to scenic Key Biscayne.  “The view of the bay from the top of the bridge is spectacular,” Joe said.  “And I can enjoy it thanks to the corneas I received from the Florida Lions Eye Bank.”

No matter what endeavor Linda Villella has pursued, it has been her vision that has brought her fame and success. As one of the world’s top figure skaters, she honed a competitive eye; as a show business choreographer, she developed an artistic eye; as a coach, teacher and mentor to young athletes, she has adopted a watchful and inspiring eye.

But it was also her eyes that have hindered her personal and professional life as she battled a troublesome case of keratoconus since she was a young adult. A cornea provided by the Florida Lions Eye Bank solved her eye disorder and has kept her moving ahead as Director of the Miami City Ballet School. She grew up in both New York and Canada and placed second in the national Olympic trials in figure skating. The following year, she was the National Canadian Champion. Linda represented Canada at the Olympics in Grenoble, France and at two World Championships.

After gaining fame from her international skating performances, she was invited to join the prestigious Ice Capades as the traveling show’s lead performer. Her show business experience led to starring roles in television commercials and then as a choreographer.Linda also trained young figure skaters and worked as an assistant to the U.S. Olympic coach.

While doing choreography work in Los Angeles, Linda met Edward Villella, America’s most celebrated male ballet dancer. After conducting a long-distance relationship - she in Los Angeles and he in New York - the skating star married the ballet virtuoso.

After Edward became the founding director of the Miami City Ballet, Linda became the Director of the Miami City Ballet School in 1993

When playing with her toddler daughter, Deicy, Lubi Gonzalez-Bartolon noticed the little girl sometimes had trouble finding her toys, although they were on the floor in front of her. By the time Deicy had turned three, her vision had progressively grown worse and the center of one of her eyes became cloudy. Corneal specialist Eduardo Alfonso, M.D. recognized the mysterious condition as congenital hereditary endothelial dystrophy, known by the acronym CHED. It is one of the rarest of all blinding eye disorders and also one of the most tragic, distorting the vision of a young child during the first years of development.

The reason it is so rare is because of the genetic component of the disease. Both parents must carry the gene that causes the endothelium to malfunction. What’s more, the gene is recessive, so the two parents would not necessarily know they had the disorder.

“It was simply a million-to-one chance,” said Dr. Alfonso. Ismael is from Guatemala and Lubi is from Mexico. They met, by chance, while both were working in agricultural fields in West Palm Beach. “It is a tragic disorder. CHED always manifests in childhood and always in both eyes,” Dr. Alfonso said. “It is still a mystery why the epithelium malfunctions and becomes cloudy. ”With a new cornea supplied by the Florida Lions Eye Bank, Deicy underwent the first surgery in 2002 when she was four years old.

“We like to wait at least six months between the transplants to make sure the patient has accepted the new cornea and that it is functioning and healed,” Dr. Alfonso said. “But we believe that Deicy has a bright future with good vision.”

• Sam Clanton

• Nolana Bell

• David Candelario

• Joe Wascura

• Linda Villella

• Deicy Gonzalez-Bartolon