A toddler was diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer after his parents noticed his eye colour changing from light blue to dark. Amy Waddle, 32, says the "horrible" experience left her with PTSD. She noticed her little boy, Teddy, two, had developed a squint in June 2023 - and originally thought he had a lazy eye.
However, a routine healthcare appointment in July revealed his squint was more serious - and he was referred for further investigation. In September 2023, he was diagnosed with retinoblastoma - a rare cancerous tumour of the retina. Now, Teddy has a prosthetic eye - after his right eye was removed.
Amy, a stay-at-home mum from Crawley, West Sussex, said: "Some days I’m so sad because Teddy has one eye. "I didn’t take much notice of his condition at first because I thought he may have a lazy eye." Between June and August 2023, Amy and Teddy's dad, 45-year-old warehouse manager, Brian, noticed Teddy's eye-colour changing from bright blue to very dark blue.
When Amy would take photos of Teddy, his eyes would glow a dark orange instead of the typical red. Despite a Google search indicating it was normal for children's eye colours to change - Amy had a gut feeling it was something more serious. "I read his eye colour could change up until they were five," she added.
"When I took photographs with flash in a dark room, it glowed orange instead of red. I had a gut instinct that it was retinoblastoma, it’s the rarest eye cancer and the symptoms can often be missed.”.
