Coats Disease
It began with a list and a picture.
Not a written list, as my wife and I were never that organized, but the way a ship would list to one side in a developing storm.
"He's a bit wall-eyed in one eye," my wife would say.
"Maybe it's just lazy. We'll get his eyes checked at his next appointment."
Sometimes these things correct themself. Maybe he has weak muscles.
Maybe I had no idea what I was talking about.
Often, things are diagnosed in fits of laughter.
And with cake, from time to time.
It was dark; a single candle produced a soft glow on my son's smiling chin.
As I glanced at the photo and cursed the autoflash for ruining the perfect moment with dust motes in focus and shades of gray, a glaring color made my finger hover over the delete button.
His funny eye was shining yellow.
I had heard of red eyes, but this struck me. I took another picture. And others. I borrowed an expensive digital camera. Flash on, flash off. By the time we had all finished our impromptu photo session, we all were seeing spots.
But only one spot mattered: that jaundiced spot that had replaced my son's black pupil.
Is it glaucoma? Cataracts? But he's the only one. A quick internet search turned up eye cancer, retinoblastoma, but then again, the internet IS cancer, so of course that's the solution it is predetermined to give.
I knew my son was one in a million (just like my other one), but the doctor narrowed it down a bit: he was one in one-hundred thousand.
But we had our answer: Coats Disease. It had a name--and that made us feel better, but not by much. It's a congenital disease with no cure, only procedures to lessen its effect. Worst case? He loses the eye. Best case? Almost total blindness. Almost. In that darkness, there lies the sliver of hope. So we began:
Laser therapy.
Cryolasers.
Four-day hospital visits.
Major surgery to remove his destroyed retina.
Glasses with a telescope lens.
Morning and night eyepatch therapy.
And now, three years later?
Can he see? Does he still need work done? Will the veins in his eyes continue to leak fluid?
Time will tell. He just turned four. His pupil is skewed to one side due to the surgeries. His eye is still listing, but not as pronounced.
The doctor shined a light in his eye the other day.
"I see yellow."
The doctor smiled. I smiled.
While he may not regain complete sight in his one eye, we were able to save it. I may not know what the future holds, I do know that the light at the end of the tunnel has a color.
And that color is yellow.