Like most other parents, Julie Fitzgerald loved snapping pictures of her 2-year-old son as he got older and started reaching exciting milestones like crawling and walking, however, she had no idea that one of those photos would help her save her son’s life.
Julie Fitzgerald noticed a one or two strange spots on her son Avery’s eye, but wasn’t too worried about it at first. Soon after, however, she saw a viral post on Facebook from another mother who had noticed a white glow in their child’s photo, which turned out to be cancer.
Fitzgerald had a nagging feeling she should try it out with her son, and just like the other mother had found, one of baby Avery’s eyes glowed white in photos with the flash on. “I just had this gut feeling in my stomach that something was wrong with his eye,” the worried mom said.
Fitzgerald couldn’t brush off her findings any longer, and when she took Avery to the doctor, they confirmed her worst fear: Avery had retinoblastoma. The cancerous tumors already covered 75 percent of his eye.
Fitzgerald was devastated when doctors told her they would have to remove his entire left eye, but was thankful that she had caught it just in time before it spread. ” If we did not get this eye out, the cancer would spread to his blood and to his brain,” Fitzgerald said.
“Our lives went from normal to cancer to a cancer survivor in three weeks. It turned out to be our worst nightmare but it saved our son’s life,” said Fitzgerald, who was stunned by how fast their lives were flipped upside down. “It is a medical emergency,” Dr. Richard Besser advised parents. “You need to see your doctor right away. It may be retinoblastoma. But if you miss that sign, it is usually fatal.”
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[Featured image: ABC]
Mom Catches 2-Year-Old’s Eye Cancer In A Photo is an article from: LifeDaily