Yellow Eye in Photos

When Ryan was initially diagnosed with retinoblastoma, rather than Coat's, we went through thousands of photos, trying to pinpoint when the disease first presented. Online sites lead me to believe that children are born with the disease, but present at different times and at different stages. Some cases are detected even in newborns -- others, not until age 10 or later. Recently, I went looking into some old photos, and realized I'd missed a bunch of photos I'd taken of Ryan between ages 1 and 2. We'd been somewhat comforted by thinking that this developed within the last year (sometime after his 2nd birthday, since the pediatrician did not see it at his 2-year-old check-up in May of 2008). I was stunned to see how many earlier photos show the disease. I'm posting some here for several reasons. Some were taken in different rooms (but on the same day) with different lighting and as you'll see, it it shows up in some, and not others. We've tried to comfort ourselves (because it's impossibly hard not to blame ourselves for not taking him to see an eye doctor sooner) by the inconsistencies in photos. The yellow eye bothered us, but when we saw it in maybe 10 of 100 photos, we dismissed it is a camera malfunction. Of course, now that we know, it couldn't be more obvious. For example, these two were taken on easter morning, 2008, taken one after another as you can see by the outfit and location of the photo(if you click on the photo, it will show you a close up, but you have to hit your back browser instead of closing the photo, or you'll close the blog):


And, these were taken on the same day: Christmas, 2007:



I think it's also helpful to see photos of Ryan's eyes as a baby (about 9 months in this photo). It was not present in any photos taken before his first birthday.

I also think it's helpful to see the "normal" red eye reflex -- this photo was taken when he was about 16 months old.

And this one at 18 months:

Also, since we are fortunate to have Nashville's best photographer as our sister, her equipment and flash are so advanced that they "mimic" natural light. It would not have shown up in any of her photos. For example: