On Christmas day of 2018 my sister noticed a glare in my son Jaxon’s eye – a sign of retinoblastoma. I took him to the GP on 27th Dec, who then advised us to go start to our localA & E department. That’s when we learned of the devastating diagnoses that Jaxon had bilateral retinoblastoma. Our lives were changed forever, we entered a world of childhood cancer. In Ireland RB is not treated so we had to Travel to Birmingham. Jaxon had chemo for 5 months in our local children’s hospital and we travelled over to Birmingham every 3-4wks for the first few months.
Jaxon had 5 months of chemo, along with regular laser & Cryo treatments. He had one round of IAC in his right eye which was his worse affected eye. This was not successful and we were advised the next step in Jaxon’s plan was to remove his right eye. Two days later his eye was removed, we were devastated but we always knew that this might be the end result of his right eye which was grade E. He continued having regular laser treatments on his left eye for another 5 months until he reached a point were he had no activity. He continued having regular check ups in Birmingham till he was 2 and half years past treatment. He was discharged from Birmingham’s Children Hospital back to our local hospital in May of this year. He is now 6yrs old and is well-adjusted to life with a prosthetic eye. It doesn’t stop him from doing anything in life. He loves to play football and go swimming. We will be forever grateful to all the amazing staff that cared & treated Jaxon.