Hello, I am Maartje,

I am an 21 years old woman from The Netherlands. I lost my right eye as an result of Retinoblastoma and would like to tell you my story. I was taking a bath with my mom when I was 18 months old. I had some foam on my face when my mother wanted to give me something. I wasn't reacting and my mother was asking herself why. My mother tried again and while I still wasn't reacting on her, she asked me what I saw. I told her I didn't see anything. My mother was staying calm and dressed me up. We went downstairs and she took some candy. She closed my right eye and asked me to take the candy in her hand, I did that. When she was closing my left eye, I didn't respond and said I didn't see anything.

My mother started to worry, we went to the general practitioner immediately and he saw it was not good. We were referred to the hospital in Utrecht were I had to stay. The doctor told my parents the bad news: I was suffering Retinoblastoma in my right eye. They had to examine whether the cancer has spread. Fortunately this was not the case, but my eye was already badly damaged and had to be removed.

I have had a surgery 2 years ago and have now an implant in my eye socket. There were still some muscles in my eye socket and the doctor connected them on the implant. My eye is moving very well I think. Now I am 21 years old and my eye prosthesis is part of my daily living. I can handle it very well and it is normal for me.

Although I have my bad days and ask myself why me?, but I think we do that all the time. I  believe the science will improve more and in the future eye prosthesis will improve even more.

I have sent a picture with my story so you can all see that they can make eyes very beautiful. I have had a boyfriend for almost 1.5 years now and he thinks I am beautiful and doesn't see me different than others.

I hope I helped some people with my story and if you would like to correspond with me I would like to hear from you!

 

Maartje

 

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