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 .