FAIRHOPE, Ala.—There’s something mystical about being in the room when a legally blind person sees clearly for the first time.

It’s the transcendental equivalent of a baby taking its first steps or a teenager earning their driver’s license.

The childlike nature inside the patient overwhelms the vulnerability of recovering from inner eye surgery.

Kasandra Madsen—a cashier at the Daphne High cafeteria—underwent a successful implantable collamer lens procedure that has restored her once legally-blind vision to near perfect. The implant will perform the everyday function of a permanent contanct lens.

“Wow!” Madsen said, sitting upright against a pillow, reading a travel bag 5 feet away from her.

On Sunday, Madsen could have told you nothing more than the bag’s color without wearing her thick glasses.

Madsen asked a surgical assistant to come bedside from behind her desk across the room, just so Madsen could practice reading the letters on the assistant’s gray sweatshirt.

 Madsen’s excitement filled the room as cheers echoed in the halls.

She didn’t stop there.

Within minutes, Madsen was deciphering the 4-square-inch warning sign on the exit door 15 feet away from her bed.

“It’s a caution sign,” she said. “Look, ‘warning.’”

“That’s the best vision you’ve had in your whole life. It went great,” said Dr. Joseph Gravlee Jr., the VisionaryUSA surgeon who performed the operation at its Fairhope office.

Madsen’s left eye is scarred from an accident during childbirth. The prospect of stem-cell introduction to the eye—which could regrow necessary parts—may one day be realized, but is not an option now, Gravlee said.

She has extreme “myopia,” or nearsightedness, which causes blurred distant vision.

Her visual impairment presented problems with night driving but hadn’t kept her from functioning at her job.

“If I take off my glasses, I can’t see 2 feet in front of my face,” she had said.

Madsen may need a pair of low-level reading glasses as she gets older, but that’s normal with age progression, Gravlee said.

Gravlee learned the technique five years ago in the Dominican Republic because then it was unapproved by the Food and Drug Administration; the procedure gained government approval in 2005.

The ophthalmologistsaid that Madsen didn’t want to let go of her glasses, a common notion among patients who’ve dealt with serious vision impairment over a long period.

“They won’t do you any good anymore,” he said.

She can save a lot of money on glasses now.”

Had a similar surgery and you’re interested in donating eye glasses? The Lions Club has fundraising campaigns including eyeglass recycling, which utilizes drop-off boxes.

Lions Club boxes can be found at Bay Eyes Spectacular and Old Tyme Feed and Garden Supply, both in Fairhope.

A Goodwill outlet also will accept a used pair of eyeglasses.