How holiday photo saved sight of baby with cancer
Sophie, 33, said: “We owe this lady everything.
“Presley had not shown any signs of being unwell and she wouldn’t have had her eyes tested until she was four.
“If it hadn’t have been picked up, she may have lost her eye.
“This lady has saved saved her sight.”
Explaining how the cancer was spotted she said: “Darren had been working away over Christmas which is why we had decided to book a last-minute holiday in January.
“When we were at the hotel, we had asked the photographer to get some pictures of the kids.
“It was on the second last day when we went to collect the photos and she pulled us aside.
“She told me to have a look at her eye. I just thought it was something like camera red eye and asked if she could just do something to make it right.
“But she told us that it should never be white and to take her to the doctor and get her checked out.”
Once warned, the couple went on to the internet and checked photos of their daughter they had taken previously which also showed she had a white eye.
Sophie added: “As soon as we got off the plane we took her to the hospital her eye and On the mend .... Presley, now aged two, at home with with her mother Sophie Findlay, and right, the holiday photo that revealed her right eye problem and we were told it was really serious. There was a white ball in her right eye. It was terrible being told she had it. Then we had to wait to find out how serious it was. But we caught it really early.”
Presley, who has just turned two, is currently responding to treatment.
While she will continue to have check-ups, her visits to Birmingham Children’s Hospital have been reduced to once every six weeks instead of once every four.
Retinoblastoma causes the affected eye to have an unusual white reflection in the pupil which can be picked up in photos. A healthy eye reflects red to a flash.
Spotted early, it can be treated successfully but if it spreads then frequently the eye affected has to be removed.
The cancer of the retina, the light sensitive lining at the back of the eye, affects only about 50 to 60 children a year in the UK