 Oana's baseball career ended in 1951, in part due to vision problems. In the spring of 1952, Oana underwent surgery in Austin, Texas, to remove cataracts from his right eye. He reportedly underwent eye surgery five times over the next 10 years and lived and worked during the late 1950s and early 1960s in a rehabilitation center for the blind in Austin, Texas. He worked there as an instructor teaching crafts to the totally blind. In 1965, the Associated Press reported that Oana's vision had returned and that he hoped to secure a job as a baseball coach, which would enable him to reimburse the Travis Association for the Blind for the assistance it provided while his vision was substantially lost due to cataracts in both eyes.
