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A way station for sight Lions facility helps donated eyes get from rural Southern Oregon tot he people who need them Photo by Steve Johnson Hospital technician Larry Brown applies solution to preserve a donor eye. BY MELISSA SCHUKAR It's not much to look at, just some counter space, a refrigerator and a microscope. But the tiny room at the back of the Southern Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Center is a big deal to people who have lost their sight. The Lion F. Lee Mellish Laboratory, which opened in Medford in 1987, is kind of a bus stop for donated eye tissue. It's a place where the tissue can be examined and preserved, then sent north in time to still be useful. It was used without fanfare until late last year, when an inspector reported some minor remodeling was needed that closed the lab. It reopened recently -- renamed to honor the co-founder of the Southern Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation -- and is a vital link in the process of getting donated corneas in Southern Oregon to people waiting for them. The cornea is a clear membrane at the front of the eye, essentially acting as a windowpane. When the cornea becomes cloudy from age or disease, sight is diminished. Corneas are relatively easy to harvest and transplant, said Marshall Santos, spokesman for the Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation in Portland. After an eye is removed from a donor, it's evaluated for soundness. If usable, the cornea is shaved off the eyeball, preserved and sent to an eye bank. The process from donation to the journey to the state eye bank in Portland -- where eye tissue is further examined and then distributed to surgeons or other eye banks -- takes less than half an hour. And because no blood circulates through the cornea, matching a donor cornea to a recipient isn't necessary. The cornea transplant rate is 95 percent, Santos said. But the pressure comes from the clock. A cornea must be removed, cleaned and preserved within 10 hours of a donor death. If a donor eye came from Lakeview, for example, that time window was often difficult to meet. That's what makes the Medford Lions lab important, said Julie Berlin, outreach director for the Lions foundation. If a donor is located in the region encompassing an area from Lakeview to Brookings and Roseburg to Ashland, a Lions eye technician on call collects the eyes, takes them to the Holly Street lab and checks them for defects. If the corneas are in good shape, they are put in a preserving solution and sent to Portland, taken by a volunteer courier from the local Lions club or by plane if weather permits, Berlin said. Horizon Air, which flies to Portland from Medford, donates fares to fly eye tissue north, she added. If the corneas can't be used, the eye tissue is still preserved and used for research. No part of a donated eye is ever discarded, Santos said. Eye tissue is useful in studying sight-robbing diseases like diabetes and keratoconus, a common condition in which the cornea narrows to a cone, causing significant pain. The value of the donation and preservation process is clear to people like Thomas Dellosa of Medford. Dellosa, 73, is the recipient of two corneas that saved his sight, which began to deteriorate in 1996. Age and a hereditary condition conspired to rob him of daily pleasures -- reading, working on model trains, picking up his grandson from school. "My wife had to drive me around -- to church and everything," Dellosa said. "If I drove up the street, I couldn't see the street signs ... now I can see almost a block away." Dellosa was put on a waiting list for a cornea and received one for his left eye in June 1997. By January of this year, he had surgery on his right eye and was back in his old routines -- even able to enjoy the trip of a lifetime to Israel with a church group. "It's hard to believe they can take the old one (cornea) out and sew a new one in," said Dellosa, who doesn't know where the donor corneas came from in keeping with organ donor policy. "I'm glad. I thank the people for donating the corneas." It's donations -- whether of time or of organs -- that make the whole system possible, Berlin said. The process starts with people making their wishes known about organ donation and the decisions of their families after death. It continues with time given by local Lions club members, who rise at all hours when called to transport eye tissue from the Rogue Valley to Portland. It's possible donated corneas could find their way back to the valley to help local patients, she said. "All of our couriers will do this 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Berlin said. "Sometimes they'll take two or three (club members) and go together. All because they want to save someone's sight. "Lions handle each and every eye." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA