| Did Your Pediatrician Check for Retinoblastoma? Joey's did not! |
| July 5, 1997- December 22, 2000 |
| I realized the last two weeks of Joey's life that he was not to be the first child to survive this disease but was to be the last child to die needlessly from it! |
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| The following pictures are very IMPORTANT!!! They were all taken prior to Joey’s eighteen month check up. It was one week after his second birthday that Joey was diagnosed with retinoblastoma. That was over seven months after these photos were taken. There is a common factor amongst all of these pictures – a WHITE REFLECTION IN THE PUPIL of his right eye. |
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| You cannot prevent retinoblastoma but you cannot die from it either. It is metastatic retinoblastoma that kills. There is no cure. Metastatic retinoblastoma is 100% preventable and should never happen. Our pediatricians need to look for this disease at every pediatric exam and can do so with an instrument called an ophthalmoscope. They simply darken the room and shine the ophthalmoscope in the child's eyes for a red reflex reaction. If they see a white reflection instead of a red reflection in the pupil of the eye there is a problem. Because the disease comes through the retina of the eye it is easily detected. With today's regular pediatric exams it should never go undetected. When it is caught in the early stages we can save the child's vision and there is never a threat to life. |
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| OPHTHALMOSCOPE |
| Needs to be used at EVERY EXAM...in a DARKENED ROOM |
| It is the "stethoscope for the eyes". Every time the stethoscope comes out to listen to your child's heart, the ophthalmoscope needs to come out to look in your child's eyes. |
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| Click on any of the pictues above to see a close-up of Joey's eyes |