WATCH ABOVE: When Julie Fitzgerald looked at her son on the eve of his second birthday she knew there was something wrong. Rebecca Klopf explains how a simple picture saved a two-year-old boy’s life.
They say a picture tells a thousand words. In one mother’s case, a photograph of her two-year-old son nudged her to seek help, which ultimately saved her toddler’s life.
Julie Fitzgerald says she noticed something was wrong on the day before her son Avery’s second birthday. She wouldn’t have guessed that he had eye cancer.
“Probably a couple months, I would notice when I was looking at Avery in a light, I would see something in the back of his eye,” she told NBC News.
READ MORE: Identical triplets receive chemo in fight against rare eye cancer
Fitzgerald searched online and read a story about a woman who would appear with white eyes in photos instead of red eyes. That tipped the woman off that she had eye cancer.
Fitzgerald decided to take a picture of her son, despite her husband’s reassurances that Avery was a happy, healthy boy.
“I had this dreaded feeling in the pit of my stomach and I took the picture and boom. His whole pupil was just white and that’s when I knew,” she said.
It was only three weeks ago. Fitzgerald went to a specialist who delivered the bad news: 75 per cent of Avery’s eye was covered in tumours. It had to be removed.
If Fitzgerald didn’t catch it soon enough, the cancer could have spread into his blood and his brain, the doctor warned.
READ MORE: One of three triplets with rare eye cancer undergoes surgery
The family also learned that Avery was likely blind in his left eye the entire time but the tumours only appeared about six weeks ago.
In a case of a trio of triplets with a rare eye cancer that garnered attention across Canada, parents also learned that something was wrong with their babies by studying their pupils.
Alberta couple, Richard and Leslie Low, suspected an ailment after looking at their son Mason’s eyes.
“I noticed Mason had an odd pupil like tear drop, I thought it was a little odd,” Richard told Global News.
With the help of a retina specialist, Mason was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a rare eye cancer that is common in young children.
READ MORE: Identical triplets begin battle to fight rare eye cancer
His brothers, Thomas and Luke, were also suffering from the condition. Ultimately, they had their eyes examined, treated with lasers and chemotherapy and in one case, removed altogether.
But they’re on the mend.
Experts told Global News that retinoblastoma can be detected early on by taking a picture of your child with a flash and looking for a red eye. White in the pupil could be light bouncing off of a tumour. The Canadian Retinoblastoma Society offers more information.
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
Follow @Carmen_Chai
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