A woman who lost her eye to cancer as a baby has gone viral sharing her quirky choice of prosthetics – including bright gold and glow-in-the-dark false eyeballs.
Rachel Mayta, 32, from Portland, Oregon, US, seemed perfectly healthy until she was 18 months old and a doctor spotted something strange in her eye.
He asked for pictures of her and saw a sure sign that something was amiss – her right eye appeared to be emitting a glow in the image.
The white glow in flash photography can indicate eye disease – or worse, cancer.
Rachel was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, an eye cancer that begins in the retina and most commonly affects young children, in October 1991.
Doctors explained there was no chance of saving the eye and it had to be removed urgently to prevent the cancer spreading, so just four days later the eyeball was removed.
Luckily, she doesn’t remember much of her cancer journey until she was fitted with her first prosthetic when she was 20 months old.
She also recalls not being massively affected by having just one eye and always wore a prosthetic – though children nicknamed her “Cyclopes” as a result.
It wasn’t until her mid-20s that she suffered any self-confidence issues, after having a surgery designed to replace the implant holding her prosthetic in place.
“After surgery and the healing process, my eye lost most of its ability to blink,” Rachel, who works as a hairstylist, told NeedToKnow.
“A surgery where I had expected the outcome to result in more mobility of the eye and a more realistic looking prosthetic became the exact opposite.
“Prior to this surgery most people wouldn’t have even noticed my eye, but afterwards it was very apparent.
“I was very aware of the people looking at me, I had people say mean things and talk to me differently.
“I was seeing this guy and after a couple of dates he told me that my eye freaked him out and he didn’t think he would be able to see past it.
“I was so unhappy with how I looked that I really didn’t do much outside of the home for almost a year.
“And then one day it hit me: I am who I am. I made the active choice to stop saying mean things to myself and only allow myself to feed my brain positivity and tell myself good things.”
With her newfound confidence, Rachel decided to explore the different options available to her in terms of prosthetics.
While she had previously had a false eye fitted to match her own eye colour, she got creative with more fun options.
She said: “I am so grateful that I found my occultist Christina King at the Center for Ocular Prosthetics in Portland – she is incredible.
“I really wanted a way to show people that I’m happy with who I am and I am open to questions and didn’t want to hide the fact that I wore a prosthetic.
“I love gold and had wanted a gold prosthetic for a while, and when I brought it up to Christina, she was not only supportive but excited about the project.
“Since then, she has made six or more fun eyes for me including glow in the dark, holographic and gold-leaf eyes.”
Rachel shows off her funky prosthetics on TikTok (@rachel.mackenzlee) with her 368,000 followers.
While her fans love to see her pop out her empty socket and share her array of fun false eyes, some fans can’t believe her eyes are real – and insist she is using filters.
Her most popular clips have racked up more than 11 million views, and Rachel says she is committed to helping end the stigma of visible differences.
She added: “I love to make people laugh on TikTok and shed some light on what life is like having a prosthetic through humour.
“Being able to laugh about the things that make us different is such a vital tool. Be exactly who you are 100% of the time and you’ll have nothing to hide.”
