Like any college student with a flair for fashion, Stephanie Dorsey makes key choices each morning.

Designer jeans or a skirt. Pumps or flip flops. Hair scrunched, curled, straightened or pulled up.

Dorsey also decides whether to wear her ears.

She was born without them. But she can snap triple-pierced ears made of silicone onto implants in her head.

“Some days I wear them, and some days I don’t,” said the energetic 20-year-old from Milton who attends Edgewood College in Madison. “It depends on what mood I’m in.”

Dorsey is among hundreds of people in Wisconsin who, because of birth defects, cancer or injuries, wear prosthetics for their ears, eyes or noses.

The devices don’t hear, see or smell — or flush, blink or tan. But for people whose features have drawn stares and name calling, they provide the gift of feeling more comfortable in public.

“I always wanted to wear my hair up and be like everybody else, and wear pretty earrings,” said Dorsey, who was a cheerleader in high school and wants to be a nurse.

After getting her first pair of ears five years ago, “I didn’t feel I was different anymore,” she said. “It was a life-changing moment for me.”

Specialized skills

Improvements in technology, artistry and materials have made some facial prosthetics look so natural even careful observers wouldn’t look twice.

But the combination of skills required to make them remains relatively rare. In Wisconsin, there are only two certified anaplastologists, or artists with medical training who make facial prosthetics.

One of them, Julie Jordan Brown, created Dorsey’s ears. Based in the Milwaukee suburb of Greenfield, Brown comes to a Madison office one or two days a week. The other anaplastologist is Greg Gion, a Madison native who worked in Dallas for many years before opening an office in Madison four years ago.

Brown and Gion collaborate with surgeons at UW Hospital and elsewhere so prosthetics complement surgery when restoring a patient’s face.

That’s how Brown made ears for Dorsey, who has Treacher Collins syndrome, a genetic condition that causes facial abnormalities at birth.

On-and-off ears

When Dorsey was born, she had no lower eyelids, her cheeks were indented and she didn’t have much of a chin. Her jaw was so recessed that she needed a tracheostomy, or hole in her neck, to breathe. She had tiny buds of lobes for ears and no ear canals.

She had surgeries to lift her eyes and reshape her cheeks. Doctors took two of her ribs to build a new jaw, which allowed them to close her tracheostomy.

When she was 15, surgeons implanted hearing aides on each side of her skull. At the same time, they removed her ear buds and placed titanium rods where her ears would be.

Brown then crafted a pair of flesh-toned silicone ears, imbedded with metal clips that attach to the rods.

On days when Dorsey stays home or goes only to class, she usually wears her hair down and doesn’t put on her ears. Other days, while getting dressed and putting on make-up, she snaps them on.

“If I wear a really cute outfit, I wear them,” she said.

The ears don’t always stay on, and Dorsey has cultivated a sense of humor that puts others at ease when they see her without them.

When she was a cheerleader, her teammates would toss her into the air. Sometimes, she would bump their arms on the way down, and her ears would fly across the gym.

“That was the highlight of everybody’s practice,” she said. “We all laughed about it.”

At the beginning of her first year at Edgewood, she set her ears beside the sink before taking a shower. Her roommate walked in — and was surprised.

“Oh, by the way, I don’t have ears,” Dorsey explained from the shower.

Caring for an eye

Colin Sweeney, 29, of Madison, lost his left eye and surrounding tissue to cancer when he was 6.

Surgery and radiation took care of the tumor. The large cavity left behind made for a difficult childhood, Sweeney said, but getting a prosthetic eye from Brown has made a big difference in his life.

Brown took some of the curly black hair from his head for eyebrows and used fake eye lashes to create a natural likeness. Every two or three years, when the silicone yellows and the pigments fade, she makes him a new one. His insurance has paid for most.

Sweeney places adhesive on the eye each morning and presses it to his face for about 15 seconds until it sticks. He takes the eye out each night. He washes it with soap and water, sometimes with alcohol.

There are some occasional snags. The adhesive can irritate his skin in the winter. Sweat can make the eye come loose, which can be a challenge because Sweeney is a runner. But it usually feels comfortable.

“The maintenance isn’t too difficult,” said the matter-of-fact man who works as an engineer at Alfalight, a Madison company that makes lasers for telecommunications and other industries.

His prosthetic is remarkably life-like. But the seam on his face is apparent, and observers can tell the eye is not real.

He wears glasses to draw attention away from it (and to protect his other eye). He faces people directly when talking so he isn’t looking out of the corner of his healthy eye.

“People walking by on the street don’t really notice,” he said, “but a cashier at the store might.”

A nose instead of a hole

Edith Kammers lost most of her nose to cancer surgery.

Gion made her a prosthetic nose a year ago, and the 80-year-old woman from Green Bay said few people can tell she is wearing it.

“You know how women say they have to put their face on? Well, I literally have to put mine on,” Kammers said.

It took her a while to get used to wearing the nose. “But now, when I go out in public, nobody is staring at me,” she said. “It’s pretty tough to look at (me) without the prosthesis on.”

She uses adhesive to attach the nose and brushes on powder make-up to help disguise it. She takes the prosthetic off at night and wears a plastic device to help her breathe.

Jim Gildo, from La Grange, Ill., near Chicago, was in a car crash two years ago on Interstate 39-90 near Janesville.

He broke his neck, his wrists and some ribs. He also lost his right ear, so Gion made him a prosthetic.

A practical joker, Gildo has hidden the fake ear under napkins and hung it on the Christmas tree.

But he’s serious about the benefits. A window and door salesman, he said it was difficult making calls at people’s homes without an ear.

Now he clips on his ear each morning, and customers have no idea it isn’t real. “I feel more confident,” he said.

Dorsey, the Edgewood student, said having a face that looks different can make people stronger.

She’s engaged to a man she met in middle school and wants to become a pediatric nurse to help children, including those who look different.

“I know what it’s like to be stared at,” she said. “It taught me not to be so judgmental toward others.”

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