Rocío Fernández
Rocío explains that, before finding IMO, they had assured her that she had to wait until her daughter was eight years old before she could be operated on
When she was born, Lucía did not open her eyes. According to her mother, Rocío Fernández, “at the hospital in Huelva, they assured us that this was normal, because it was a premature birth, but as time passed and there were no signs of improvement, we continued to worry. We visited different doctors and, after two long months, we were finally able to name her illness.” That name was blepharophimosis, a congenital and minor syndrome that encompasses different eyelid malformations, such as ptosis or drooping of the eyelid, which, if not treated early, can cause chronic visual limitation.
However, Rocío explains that, before finding IMO, they had assured her that she had to wait until her daughter was eight years old before she could be operated on, something that would have impaired the evolution of her vision, which is developing until approximately that age. Lucía was also affected in her day-to-day life by associated problems, such as torticollis (due to the need to tilt her head to compensate for the reduced visual field) and was withdrawn and distrustful due to not being able to see.
“We were lost, although we did not settle for the alternative they had given us and we got in touch with another family from Huelva who had gone through the same thing. Their children had been treated at IMO and, seeing first-hand the great resulting change, we moved heaven and earth to be able to give Lucía the same opportunity. We have the support not only of family members, but also of people from all over Spain who joined the cause, and, at 10 months of age, she was operated on at the Institute for the first surgery.”
This surgery improved the crease that forms in the eyelid skin and lengthened the palpebral fissure.
As Dr Ramón Medel, coordinator of the Department of Oculoplastics, explains, “with this surgery, we improved the fold that forms in the eyelid skin and lengthened the palpebral fissure.” The next step, four months later, was to correct the ptosis, an operation that the Institute’s specialist recommends carrying out when the baby is around one year old and begins to stand up, in order to prevent the drooping eyelid from making it difficult for the child to see and generate a lazy eye.
Satisfaction with the result
As a result of both highly specialised surgeries, “Lucía has undergone a spectacular change. Now her eyes are open and she can see, she is much more cheerful, vital and outgoing,” says her mother, who concludes that “it isn’t easy to see your daughter enter the operating room so young, but IMO has given us the utmost confidence. Everything here is done ensuring minimum suffering for the patient, and the team is wonderful. You just have to see how Lucía has stopped crying to go to the ophthalmologist and feels calm and laughs every time she comes to IMO for consultation.”
Rocío therefore does not hesitate to recommend the Institute to other families who “like us at the beginning, are disoriented and without references with regard to a rare and unknown disease such as blepharophimosis.”
