Thursday, April 09, 2009

Aniridia

This weekend at the Texas Lions Camp I got to meet a little girl with an astounding condition that I had no idea existed. She is the daughter (maybe 3-31/2 years old) of one of my fellow Austin Downtown Lions. I met her at lunch on Saturday. I had been painting all morning with her father while her mother walked her and her sister around the camp. It was about 12:30 and she was NOT interested in the burger and fries in front of her.

As a childless 49 year old it was clear to even me that she wanted a nap and wanted it now. Still, she was cute as she could be and her father and I started to discuss her and he mentioned that when older, she would likely qualify as someone for the camp. I looked at her and said, “What do you mean?”

He replied, “She has aniridia. She has no irises.”

I looked closely and sure enough, she didn’t. At her young age and size one has to get pretty close to her to tell. Talking to her mom and dad I learned that the only treatmets today are basically opaque contacts with a fixed aperture for the pupils and in rare cases, some kind of tattooing of the pupil that I shudder to even consider.

The good news is that we are apparently very few years away from some kind of iris implants.

For more info: www.aniridia.org .

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I HOPE SO ALSO
MY SON HAS ANIRIDIA AND NOBODY TELLS US EXACTLY WHAT WE HAVE TO DO
WE LIVE AT GREECE AND ANIRIDIA HERE IS LIKE AIDS BEFORE 25 YEARS
WE WENT TO UK AND THEY TOLD US THAT THERE IS NOTHING YET TO DO

Anonymous said...

ΤΗΝΧ
ΤΗΕΟΝΙΚΟΝΤΙ@YAHOO.COM

Scooter said...

Be sure to check out the link in my original post. I pray for the best for your son...and for a new breakthrough soon.