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Flash Harry

There was more to a family snap than we thought...


Published by: Laura Hinton
Published on: 2nd February 2011

Music blared from the telly as I went to pull my four-year-old son Harry away. He was perched close up to the screen.
‘You’ll go cross-eyed sitting that near,’ I teased. ‘Come on,’ I chuckled, rolling my eyes. ‘Time to get ready for the party.’
‘Party!’ he squealed, springing to his feet.
Since we’d got the invite for his cousin Molly’s fourth birthday bash, Harry had been so excited.
‘Let’s get dressed,’ I added. ‘Where are your trainers?’
‘Can’t see them!’ he giggled, holding his hands up to his face and peering out from behind them.
Typical kid – he could never find anything when I needed him to!
The doorbell rang. It was my mum Caroline, 51.
I’d split with Harry’s dad Dale, 36, a couple of months ago, so she was taking Harry to the party while I went to work.
‘I’m gutted to miss it,’ I told her. I liked to be there to experience every moment of my son growing up.
‘I’ll take lots of photos,’ she promised.
‘Great idea. Here’s my camera!’
Flicking through the photos on the camera later was almost as good as being at the party.
‘It was fun, Mummy,’ Harry said.
I smiled as I strained to look at the camera’s tiny screen. I’ll have to put the snaps on the computer, and send Mum some copies.
But it was days before I found time to download them. Grinning, I browsed through them properly.
There’s Molly… Mum and Dad… and my blue-eyed boy!
Shame about the lighting. Mum must have done something weird with the flash. Harry’s eyes look odd.
When he stared directly into the camera, his right eye had a weird glare, like a catseye in the road.
The washing machine came to a stop, and I made a mental note to email the photos to Mum later.
As I hung out the washing, I couldn’t stop thinking about the photos of Harry looking into the camera – they haunted me.
Hadn’t I read about a couple who’d discovered their baby had a tumour after looking at a photo and spotting her odd, cloudy eye?
All of a sudden, images of Harry laying in a hospital bed looking deathly hurtled around my head.
Come on Lynsey, you’re probably over-reacting!
But mother’s instinct sent me running back to the computer and zooming in on Harry’s eyes.
I can either sit here, fretting, or do something. I scooped Harry up and took him to the opticians.
‘There may be something…’ the optician said, and referred us to Sunderland’s Eye Infirmary.
Four hours later, we were still waiting at the hospital to be seen.
Fear ate away at me while Harry was fidgeting as he was so bored.
‘We’ve just got to get your eyes checked, sweetie,’ I told him.
He sighed, then buried his head in a Thomas the Tank Engine book.
Did his right eye turn slower than the other just then? Why was he hunched so close to the page?
Finally, a nurse called us in and placed big, wire-framed glasses on Harry. His right eye – the cloudy one in the photos – was covered with a blanked-out lens.
‘Heavy,’ he huffed. Poor little fella was getting tired and irritable.
‘Honey,’ I said, sweetly. ‘Why don’t you tell the lady what you can see on the board ahead?’
‘A cat!’ he squealed.
‘Good boy!’ I beamed. I’d been worrying about nothing…
Then the nurse swapped the blank lens to cover his left eye – and Harry started thrashing his head about.
‘Darling, please sit still,’ I said gently. No chance. He was trying to pull off the glasses! ‘Harry, what’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘It’s dark,’ he cried out, panicking.
‘I don’t think he can see more than eight inches in front with his right eye,’ the nurse said. ‘You need to come back tomorrow.’
‘B-but why? What’s wrong with him?’
‘There’s a small possibility Harry has a tumour behind his eye,’ she said.
My head reeled as I imagined him fumbling around, blind.
That night, I didn’t sleep a wink.
Back at hospital the next day, we saw a doctor.
‘The good news is Harry doesn’t have a tumour,’ he said.
Phew! My body physically relaxed. ‘He has Coats’ disease, though,’ he added.
‘Okay, it’s not a tumour, so what is it?’ I asked.
‘The blood vessels in his eye have been leaking, causing a build- up of mucus, which is blocking his vision,’ he explained.
‘We can use laser eye surgery to prevent it from getting worse,’ he added. ‘If you hadn’t noticed it when you did, we’d have been in a worse position later.’
A couple of weeks afterwards, Harry had surgery.
‘We’re going to get your cheeky eye fixed,’ I told him.
‘Okay, Mummy,’ he smiled. Bless him.
The next day, he was back home – a patch over his cheeky eye, as we called it.
‘That’s to make you better,’ I’d tut, scooping him into a hug when he tried pulling it off.
Since then, Harry has been back once for more surgery. Doctors have slowed the leaking in his right eye and, hopefully, they’ve caught it in time to stop it spreading to his other eye.
I’m glad I trusted my mother’s instinct when I saw those photos.
They were more than just another happy memory – they held the key to my son’s future, too.
Lynsey Baxter, 29, Jarrow, Tyne And Wear