Having big doe-like eyes like a princess is a dream of every girl out there. But for Mehlani her big eyes might be a bane.
1-year-old Mehlani Dickerson was born with big eyes that her mother Karina Martinez thought nothing of, except that her baby was perfect.
But Melani’s big eyes is due to a rare genetic disorder called Axenfeld-Rieger syndrome which could someday blind her.
Depending on its severity, the Axenfeld-Rieger is typically apparent almost immediately.
Mehlani was diagnosed with the syndrome in the first week of her life.
Children born with Axenfeld-Rieger often have small or nearly non-existent irises, so their eyes appear to be missing the coloured part of their eyes.
The hole at the centre of the eye, the pupil, maybe off centre, or misshapen. Some with the condition even have multiple pupils.
Light enters the eye through the pupil, so children like Mehlani with unusually shaped or multiple pupils are often unusually sensitive to light.
Mehlani’s left eye has the hints of iris in one corner, but otherwise, it is entirely pupil, as is her whole right eye.
So anytime she wants to go outside – whether between her home in Minnesota and her mother’s car or to the playground to play on the swings – Mehlani must wear her glamorous lavender sunglasses to block out the sun.
Mehlani had a 50% chance of developing a secondary condition, called glaucoma.
A glaucoma is any of a number of diseases that result in a build-up of pressure in the space at front of the eye which can in turn damage the optic nerve, leading to the loss of sight.
Karina and Mehlani’s father, had never heard of Axenfeld-Rieger. She knew of glaucoma, but only as a disease of the elderly.
‘I’d never heard of anybody being born with it though,’ said 21-year-old Karina.
Doctors told Karina that her daughter does have glaucoma.
It set in early for Mehlani, who is still shy of her second birthday. Most of the time, glaucoma is diagnosed in later childhood or early adolescence.
But so far, she’s been lucky, maintaining her ability to see.
That’s partly thanks to a surgery the little girl had to have when she was just five months old.
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