4-10-2000

Hi Mike my name is Julie Cox and my son Ryan was diagnosed with Retinoblastoma in March of 1997. He was 22months old when we started to see the cat's eye reflex in his eye. The pediatrician did a brief eye exam and said his vision seemed to be fine. If he had a problem seeing to let him know and he would pursue this further. About a month later my father and mother were watching Ryan and my father noticed his pupil appeared to have a white shadow inside. I took him home and covered the good eye and held a few objects in front of him and he couldn't see any of them. In a panic I called a optometrist and told him my story. They took Ryan in right away to examine him. He told me it wasn't his vision, he had a mass in his eye. He called the pediatric opthamologist for us she came to her office on a Sunday just to see Ryan. She confirmed that it was Retinoblastoma and his Retina had already dettached so he could see nothing from his left eye. She advised us the best treatment way to treat him would be to remove his eye. They could have tried radiation but since his vision was already gone, it was better to remove the eye with the tumor and hope that it hadn't gone far enough to penetrate the optic nerve. Within a week we were at the hospital having Ryan''s eye removed. His tumor was so large that it took up the entire circumference of his eye ball. It was up to and against the optic nerve but did not penetrate. We were so happy that he only had to lose an eye and that the prognosis looked good. We had genetic testing done on Ryan and my husband and myself and it was not genetic. The terrible thing about that is that we don't know what caused it. But Ryan is now going to be 5 next month and so far no more tumors. He still has his EUA's every 6 months until he is 5 then he'll be old enough to have his exams in the doctor's office. He has adjusted so well there was never even any transition. For the children going through all this is not as tough as it is for us parents. We need to get our strength from them. Isn't that ironic. We will keep Tony in our prayers and you and your wife also. My message to all the other families going through this is to Keep the Faith, in God, and in the Children, Together we will all make it through. Thanks for listening, Julie Cox Youngstown, Ohio.
Feel free to do what you want with my letter. I will email some pictures of
Ryan..