Some say a picture is worth a thousand words. For one U.K. family it was worth so much more as David and Tracey Ripley credit a wedding photograph for saving their daughter's life.
According to the Daily Mail, the parents were looking at a family member's pictures from a recent wedding when they noticed something different about their three-year-old twin daughters.
Sophie Ripley's right eye was blue - just like her sister Molly - but three-year-old Sophie's left eye had a black spot that puzzled parents Tracey and David. They immediately sought the advice of their general practitioner. It was shocking what they found out about.
A specialist diagnosed Sophie with retinoblastoma that had caused cancerous tumors to grow in the eyes. Sophie had to have her eye removed and faced chemotherapy before Tracey and David were told the cancer is in remission. She now has a prosthetic eye.
This story caught my attention immediately. Thank God they caught it in time to save such a precious baby. But it caught my attention for personal reasons.
My son was just diagnosed with an eye condition last October at the age of seven. I have regret daily for not catching the issue sooner. He has Amblyopia. It is a condition in which the eye sends blurry images to the brain from birth. It often leads to the eye eventually stopping to work.
My son is one of those kids. The earlier Amblyopia is diagnosed, the better chance of recovery. No this is nothing like cancer, but if children are diagnosed by the age of three, their chances for full recovery increase substantially. The treatment we are doing is to patch the good eye to try and force the bad eye to work. So for the majority of time the first few months, my husband and I watched in agony as my son sat practically blind and scared trying to regain sight.
As I look back over his pictures throughout his life, it is obvious to see that something is wrong with that eye. We never understood why it looked the way it did in pictures but never thought it was any thing to worry about. Now we wish we would have.
He has made tremendous strides despite being considered "old" for treatment. He has gone from just being able to see "two fingers" in front of his face to 20/150 vision meaning he can see at 20 feet what others see at 150 feet. This is a miracle improvement.
However, I can not stress enough how much easier this whole process would have been if we would have found out earlier in his life.
What happened to this family is a miracle. It is a miracle the parents were smart enough to check it out. I have learned so much since my son's diagnosis. The most important is that kids are never to young to be tested. The office where my son goes tests preemies the majority of the day. Babies can get their eyes tested. One of the main techniques doctors use on these babies: taking their photo. I urge all parents who have kids to have their vision tested by a doctor before the age of three. You can never be too safe these days and the earlier something is caught, the more chance of recovery. Just ask Sophie Ripley. To see pictures of Sophie or read more about this story, visit online at
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/womenfamily.html?in_article_id=509539 & in_page_id=1799 & ct=5
tweet this!
