Parenting is just about the most rewarding job in the world, but it’s also one of the hardest.
And we aren’t just talking about the countless day-to-day challenges of caring for little ones. Probably the hardest part is the constant fear of something bad happening.
It’s hard not to hover, especially when the strangest and most unexpected dangers can rise up without any warning at all, like this young man’s tiny bug bite that turned into a scary swelling.
It’s not surprising that parents learn to be extra vigilant about surprising hazards.
One jarring example? The story of a U.K. family that learned that a weird reflection in their family photos was actually a sign of a rare cancer growing in their youngest child.
Mom Jade Bell took her baby daughter to the doctor after noticing a strange white glow. Thank goodness she was so cautious, because it turned out that the camera was actually capturing a very sinister sign of tumor growth.
Scroll through below to learn more!
For devoted mom Jade Bell, it all started with a few photographs back in 2014.
She and her husband were looking forward to celebrating their first Christmas as a family of four, with their son Jaiden and their new baby daughter, Tyraah.
Bell dressed the kids up for the photo op, but when she got the snaps developed, she noticed a funny white glow in Tyraah’s right eye.
Looking back through other recent pictures of then-8-month-old Tyraah, Bell noticed the same glowing in other photos, always behind her right eye.
She also realized that her baby girl’s eye had started to drift; she was having trouble focusing and matching up both eyes.
Concerned, Bell took Tyraah to her pediatrician to get the strange glare checked out.
Doctors echoed Mom’s concerns, because ordinary photos can sometimes show otherwise invisible symptoms of eye problems, including eye cancer.
Sure enough, just days after Bell noticed the glare, the doctors confirmed her worst fears: Little Tyraah had retinoblastoma, an aggressive cancer that targets little ones under the age of 6 and can be hard to detect.
Fortunately, because Jade Bell knew that an odd glare in a photo is a dangerous warning sign, she acted fast.
Little Tyraah was diagnosed on Christmas Eve, and was in chemo treatment by mid-January, where doctors acted fast to target her cancer.
The chemo made her weak and sickly, and she was in and out of the hospital for months, battling the side effects of treatment.
Still all the challenges of chemo were worth it in the end, because Tyraah was declared cancer-free within a year of her diagnosis.
Now she goes in for regular checkups every couple of months to make sure the cancer hasn’t returned, but she is a completely different little girl!
Once Tyraah’s chemo was done and she started to feel better, she transformed into a radiant, bubbly toddler.
Now she’s nearly 3 years old, and as giggly and adorable as can be!
She even got to welcome a new baby sister into the family; baby Mariaah was born right on time for the holiday season.
In other words, it was a much happier Christmas this past year than it was in 2014!
Still, mom Jade encourages parents to learn from their family’s experience and use holiday photos and Christmas cards as an opportunity to watch out for this scary symptom.
If you notice a white glow or glare behind the eyes in any photo of a child, it may be time to get a doctor to take a look, to make sure more stories like Tyraah’s have a happy ending!
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