After more than two years of blindness, a 72-year-old Honolulu woman has regained some of her sight thanks to a bionic eye, ABC News reported. Lead surgeon Dr. Gregg Komane of the Hawaii Eye Surgery Center implanted the device during a four-hour surgery performed on Wednesday. Following the successful surgery, the woman has begun to see shades of gray.

Though her sight has been restored only partially for now, she is expected to improve as she recovers in the days to come. Within two months, "she'll actually start to see motion, actually start to see somebody walk into the room, and be able to see different shades of grey," Kokame told ABC.

Bionic eye implant inventor Dr. Mark Humayan said surgeons implanted a microelectrode array to the surface of the woman's retina and this is wirelessly connected to a camera built into a pair of special glasses. The camera processes images of the outside world and then transports them, via a microchip, through the retina and optic nerve and into the brain, he told Hawaii News Now. "You don't put the chip on and flip a switch and they see, it takes a while for the brain to start seeing again," inventor Dr. Mark Humayan told ABC.

The bionic eye, an FDA-approved device with an estimated price tag of $144,000, was covered by Medicare for the patient whose name was not disclosed. The technology only works for those who have lost their sight as a result of a particular hereditary disease. However, Humayan speculates the bionic eye will be adapted for other causes of blindness.