On Wednesday October 11 2001, Danielle was hit in the eye by another student at school and her eyelid was scratched. She was almost six years old. The next day her eye was very bloodshot and painful, so I took her to our family doctor and he thought that her retina was detached. He called his father, who is an ophthalmologist, and we saw him two hours later.
The ophthalmologist detected the tumour and seeding in Danielle's eye. He didn't realise that it was retinoblastoma, but he did schedule an appointment for us in Toronto with a retinal surgeon for the following Tuesday.
The retinal surgeon had a look at Danielle and then sent us to Sick Kids to see Dr Brenda Gallie, telling us that this was not his field - that he was a surgeon - but not actually telling us that it was rb. Once at Sick Kids, Danielle was seen by a resident, Dr Mulvahill, and had an eye ultrasound before Dr Gallie had a look at her eyes and broke the news to us about retinoblastoma.
Lisa, the rb team co-ordinator, scheduled Danielle's enucleation for that Friday morning, making sure that we brought our other child, Natalie, back to Toronto with us so they could check her eyes for rb as well. We went upstairs to have a cat scan done to see if the rb had already spread to Danielle's brain, and then we spoke to Lisa once again to get more information on the operation and what to expect afterwards.
Natalie's eye exam in the clinic showed no signs of rb. Danielle's surgery went smoothly - Dr Gallie came out part way through to let us know that her left eye was tumour free and that they would continue with the enucleation. They also did a lumbar puncture and took a bone marrow and blood sample to see if the cancer had spread.
Danielle was out of hospital by Monday and back to school by Thursday, looking and acting not much differently than before. She has handled it all so well, as we were told she would by Dr Gallie - much better than we did really!
About a month after her enucleation, we were back in Toronto to have her prosthetic eye made. Her new eye looks so beautiful, no one can even tell which eye it is. All her tests came back negative for cancer and her genetic testing revealed that it was a sporadic mutation, not inherited from us. Natalie no longer needs to be seen in clinic, but Danielle is still being checked every 6 months by Dr Budning at the clinic at Sick Kids. |
