Gerrard Kaonga
A mother has issued a warning to families after revealing she couldn’t believe what doctors were saying when they theorized how her 2-year-old lost his vision.
A mother living in the UK has said she thought it was an April Fool's joke when doctors told her that her 2-year-old son had a serious eye infection.
The 2-year-old, Juwon, would eventually go on to lose sight in one eye when initially doctors believed the issue would be resolved with antibiotics.
The child’s mother, Michelle Saaiman, initially took her son to the doctors back in August 2024 when the then 16-month-old developed what his parents believed was a simple eye infection.
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The mother took to Facebook to recall that, despite being given antibiotics, she realized it was more serious than an eye infection.
She wrote: “Two days later, we noticed that there was something seriously wrong with the eye. It looked like something was growing inside his eyeball.
“We realized that he had no feeling in his eye, as he literally put his finger in his eye, scratching his eyeball, without even flinching.
“It's the most traumatic experience to look at your baby, and literally see a 4mm open wound in his eye.”
Further tests and examinations by doctors revealed that Juwon had developed a cold sore, caused by the herpes simplex virus, in his eye.
As both of his parents were negative for the virus, doctors believed that someone else, potentially with a cold sore, unknowingly passed the virus to the toddler via a kiss.
Now, Saaiman is urging parents to ban relatives and friends from kissing their babies due to the potential risks. She added that it took doctors weeks to get Juwan’s infection under control, but by this time, it was too late and the damage to the eye had already been done.
Speaking to the Metro about her son, she said: “By that time the herpes just caused so much damage to his cornea that he essentially just lost all feeling in the eye and he could not see anything. He was completely blind.
“It meant the brain did not recognize the eye anymore and stopped sending signals to the eye. The gel later protecting the eye evaporated and the eye dried out.”
Now, the family are hopeful that an operation to transfer nerves from his leg to his eye socket to restore the connection between the eyeball and the brain will be successful.
If that is successful, it could make Juwan eligible for a cornea transplant, which could restore his vision.