Owen Scrivens was looking at a photo of his son shot with the flash up close to the baby’s face. A few seconds later, he noticed something unsettling in his eyes. That’s when he realized his son has eye cancer, the Metro reports.
Scrivens saw a small circle of white reflection on the baby Jaxson’s right eye, while his left eye remained red. Eyes normally get red spots when photos were taken with a bright flash. As soon as Scrivens saw it, he immediately looked it up online and sent his baby to his General Practitioner.
Scrivens said, “I looked through some old photos and you actually can see the point where it changes in late November. There’d been nothing else wrong, although after we noticed the eye color he started to develop a bit of a squint.”
Scrivens, who’s a medicine student and a part-time caregiver. He and his partner, Emily, lives in Felpham, West Sussex. They took their baby to the doctor in December, who told them that they “had never seen anything like it” in their 17 years of experience.
Scrivens said, “After the chemo he’s very sick for a couple of days, he’s just not his usual self and doesn’t want to do anything, but after a few days he gets back to his usual happy self.”
He continued, “His sight is alright – they can’t do a proper eye test but from what they’ve found, he’s missing a bit of tunnel vision. It’s going insanely well and we’re so proud of him.”
Jason was taken to an eye specialist at the Royal London Hospital and discovered his cancer. After receiving his treatment on December, the baby boy’s tumor had shrunk to a third of its size, according to Scrivens.
Scrivens said, “It’s hard enough being a young couple, and it’s been really difficult to support ourselves. We’ve had to take time off work, so it’s been financially hard as well as emotionally.”
The tumor, however, will remain inside Jaxson’s eye. They just have to monitor it frequently to avoid complications if it decides to become aggressive.
Scrivens said, “We really want to raise awareness of this cancer – it’s something so simple to spot, it doesn’t come up in every photo and not everyone will be able to spot it but a lot of people will.”
He continued, “Some children at the hospital had both their eyes removed, which is horrible, and we want people to catch it early. What’s really shocked us from talking to people is them saying, ‘My niece or nephew had a white glow in their eye but we didn’t think anything of it.’”
