Nine-year-old Ivan and a friend were out catching shrimp one day when his friend accidentally speared him in the eye with his shrimp spear. The spear perforated Ivan's cornea, iris and lens capsule. His parents took him to the local surgeon who did his best to repair the damage using large suture material, which was all that he had available in his meager supplies. 

About three weeks later, the Canvasback eye team arrived in Pohnpei and Ivan was brought in to see them.  By this time, his eye lid was swollen where the suture ends were poking him like thorns, and the eye itself was covered with a fluffy white cataract and had become extremely painful. 

Worse, Ivan had lost all ability to see light, leading Dr. Ron Evans and Dr. David Eisenberg to believe that the eye was infected. They worried that the infection could become orbital cellulitis and travel along optic nerve to the brain.

The question was whether to remove the eye or try to save it. The doctors decided to try saving it, so they took Ivan into surgery where they removed the cataract, implanted a new lens, replaced the large sutures with finer ones, buried the knots and injected the eye with antibiotics. All that was left to do now was to wait and pray.

Over the next several days, Dr. Evans checked on Ivan periodically, but he seemed to make little improvement.  Finally one day he entered the ward to find Ivan smiling and looking much better.  Greatly relieved, Dr. Evans smiled and said to Ivan, "Maybe after two more days of antibiotics you can go home.  How would you like that?"  The little boy let out a holler and lept like a frog across the bed and straight into his grateful mother's arms.