FOR months teenager Abi Marie Dean dismissed her blurry vision. The aspiring hairdresser didn’t tell her dad, Martin, and delayed visiting an optician due to the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. 3 Abi Marie Dean tragically lost her life to a rare form of eye cancer Credit: Supplied 3 Abi with boyfriend Tom Credit: Supplied 3 Abi and dad Martin, who wants to make sure other parents ensure kids' eyes are checked frequently Credit: Lianne Marie Photography Two years later, aged 18, Abi died after the rare form of melanoma that was causing her vision problems spread.
Now, heartbroken dad Martin is pleading with other parents to ensure their kids’ eyes are checked regularly — telling Sun Health: “If she had told us three months earlier, maybe the treatment would have worked.” Abi’s death in September last year came as a shock to her small town of Oxted, Surrey, where locals have since raised more than £10,000 for the charity Young Lives VS Cancer, which supported the youngster in her last months of life. Martin, 40, a plasterer, says: “She had melanoma of the eye.
I’d never even heard of it before. “Most of the time in life you say, ‘I learned from that, let’s not do that again’. Sometimes in life, you don’t get the chance to put it right.
That’s the hardest thing as a dad. From a baby to a teenager, I protected Abi, she was my absolute life, all my kids are. “For it to be taken out of my control, not to be able to do anything and watch it unfold, was.