StemCell Therapy

A Mayo woman is raising funds for her niece who is losing her sight from three different eye conditions.

Magdalena Krawiec, originally from Poland, wants to help her goddaughter Zuzia Krawiec to get the best care possible.

Zuzia, four, was born with an eye disease called congenital nystagmus, which can be caused with the eye itself or by a problem with the visual pathway from the eye to the brain.

Around four months after she was born, Zuzia was then diagnosed with hyperopia astigmatism.

The condition affects Zuzias sight so that objects close to her are out of focus.

This along with her mcular hypoplasia, which she was only diagnosed with recently, make it impossible for her to see anything in detail.

Her aunt told Extra.ie: The macular hypoplasia is the worst because theres not much we can do about it.

It affects the vision clarity and because of it she will never be able to see clearly. She can only see as far as one metre and its basically shadows and lights

Were working on her sight so that she will eventually be able to see 10 or 15 metres in front of her but thats going to be over many years.

Zuzia has to take medication and do exercises to help her eyes improve but shes also had to have surgeries.

Shes had one of ten surgeries so far and the family are looking into stem cell treatment, which more people are interested in in recent years.

The family hope to schedule her second operation soon as the masses are really loose behind her eye and they need to tighten those muslces.

This operation will held Zuzias eyeball become more steady and so help her look straight because right now theyre all over the place.

Theyre kind of shaky, Magdalena continued. Thats the problem.

Zuzia is currently in play school but once a week she goes to a special school where she does two hours of different exercises for children with disabilities.

One hour she learns how to use her hands to recognise objects and another hour Zuzia uses an optical enlarger, something her family hopes to buy her so she can see things better.

It will be able to help her see better as it makes pictures at least 50 times larger, Magdalena said.

Zuzia needs constant care, her aunt tells Extra.ie, so that she doesnt hurt herself as she walks around.

Magdalena said: She needs help going to the toilet or going outside, anything where there may be obstacles in her way.

She cant see so she could walk into a wall or something, she could hurt herself.

Zuzia will never have the same sight the average person has, but with the operations she may gain better sight.

Magdalena revealed that she and her family dont know the root of the problem and hope genetic tests will help them get an idea of what is going on.

The genetic tests have to be done through the national health service and can take two to three years, but another huge hit is the cost of the tests.

Its around 2,500, Magdalena said. Its ridiculous because shes young, we need to do it as quick as possible.

The brain is getting used to the eyes not working, so the quicker we get it fixed the better. We want her to actually see something.

Despite her eyesight, Zuzia is a happy child and a big sister to her baby brother.

However, Zuzia has started asking about her brothers sight, wondering: How come he can see and I cant?

Its heartbreaking, Magdalena admitted. Its hard to explain to her that her eyes are sick.

To help her family, Magdalena set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for Zuzias operation and her care, which you can donate to here.

Magdalena has also has a collection point in The Breadski Brothers store in Westport to help raise funds.

She really needs specialised care, especially during these early years in her development, to improve her chances of avoiding total blindness and giving her the childhood she deserves.

See the original post:
Mayo woman raising funds for niece, 4, who is losing her sight from three different eye conditions - Extra.ie

This entry was posted on January 23, 2020 at 11:42 pm and is filed under Eye Sight & Vision. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |