Eye Test campaign

When she was three and half years old, our daughter Immy started losing her balance. At first, we put it down to a growth spurt. However, after a couple of weeks of these episodes increasing, I decided to take her to our local GP. They told me it was ear infection and sent us off with a five day course of antibiotics. However, nearly four months passed and Immy was not showing signs of improvement. She started getting very sleepy and, most worryingly, she had started having episodes of sickness first thing in the morning. We went back and forth to the GP on numerous occasions only to be told it might be dyspraxia, to try stronger antibiotics and, on one occasion, I was told that I was a hypochondriac and was asked to stop wasting their time.

I was beside myself, knowing there was something wrong but constantly being told by professionals who I trusted that it was all in my head. In a last-ditch attempt to get some proper answers, I booked an appointment with our local optician to see whether her eyesight might be the problem.

During the appointment, the optician did all the typical vision tests and then decided to make sure that the back of Immy’s eyes were alright. We waited while the orange dye did its job of dilating her pupils and then went back into the consultation room. Within seconds of checking, our optician turned to me and said that she could see a lot of swelling in the optic nerves, meaning that there was an abnormal amount of pressure in Immy’s brain. We were immediately sent to our local A&E, armed with photos of the optic nerves and a letter from the optician. Within an hour of us being seen, Immy was transferred up to the Children’s Ward for further tests. It was then decided that a CT scan was needed. Not long after Immy had come back onto the ward, we were delivered that absolutely devastating news that they had found a large mass on her cerebellum and she was going to be blue-lighted for emergency surgery to relieve the pressure in her brain. 

After arriving at the specialist hospital, Immy was taken straight down to theatre and underwent life-saving surgery to have an external drain fitted to alleviate the excess cerebral fluid. Immy ended up in hospital for nearly two months, having extensive brain surgery to remove the tumour and then a shunt fitted due to being diagnosed with acquired hydrocephalus. Thankfully the tumour was benign, so no radio or chemotherapy was needed.

It was only after we had been discharged that I spoke to her consultant at our local hospital, who informed me that he had personally called our optician a couple of days after Immy had been diagnosed to thank them. He told us that if the swelling hadn’t been detected in her optic nerves that day, Immy could have passed away in her sleep. As the pressure was becoming so high, it is likely that it would have killed her. 

I cannot put into words how thankful I am to our optician and all the incredible teams who have looked after Immy from the very start. The last 11 years have been incredibly tough at times for Immy and she has now been through numerous surgeries. She is by far and away the most inspirational and incredible person we know and we are so proud to be her parents. In April next year, she’ll be celebrating her 15th birthday.

Sight tests aren’t typically offered to children under the age of four but, if you think there might be a problem, I cannot stress enough how important it is to get that appointment booked.

Gut instinct is a parental superpower. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. 💙🧡💙🧡