When a mother noticed her months-old daughter’s eyes had turned red, she took her to the doctor, thinking it must be because of the flu. Little did she know that the doctors would diagnose her daughter with a rare disease and say that she might never see, walk or talk. As a parent, watching your little one go under the knife is a painful experience that requires a lot of courage. Parents who go through this process either see their children recover or have to say goodbye forever!
The mother in today’s story also experienced something similar when she took her daughter to the doctor. When the doctors diagnosed her little girl with a rare condition, she couldn’t believe it. But a few years later, the girl proved the doctor’s predictions wrong and embarked on a miraculous recovery journey. In 2014, Amy noticed her months-old daughter, Evie-Mae Geurts, had red eyes after she had recovered from a cold. Amy immediately took Evie to Bristol Children’s Hospital, UK, for a check-up.
When the doctors shone a torch in Evie’s eyes, they saw no response from the little girl. After confirming the symptoms, the doctors told Amy her daughter was blind. The mother’s world came crashing down after finding out her daughter wouldn’t be able to live her life like other children. However, Amy returned to the hospital again when she noticed Evie’s head swelling. She suspected it was a condition called hydrocephalus. The mom said:
“I knew of hydrocephalus because my brother has it, and I thought that might be why she had no vision, but I was told I was wrong because she was a smiley baby.” Despite what the doctors told her, Amy was adamant Evie had hydrocephalus. One day, she took her 8-month-old daughter to her brother’s neurosurgeon to see if her suspicion was correct. It seemed like Amy didn’t have to see her daughter go under the knife again, but that wasn’t true. After examining Evie, the neurosurgeon diagnosed her with hydrocephalus.
Amy took her daughter’s reports and returned to Bristol Children’s Hospital, where she urged the doctors to see her daughter, threatening she wouldn’t leave the hospital if they didn’t. After waiting 10 hours in the emergency department, the doctors called Evie and confirmed that she had hydrocephalus. They scheduled surgery for the next day to treat it as soon as possible.
The following day, Amy brought her baby to the hospital and saw her go into the operation theatre. As a mother, waiting for Evie to come out of there was nothing less than a challenge. The doctors later told her that Evie’s condition was critical and that Amy had brought her to the hospital at the right time. Amy explained:
“It’s such a horrible pressure. The pressure in your brain should be at zero, and on a bad migraine, it’ll be five, and Evie’s was 32 and higher when they measured.”She could have died,” Amy said. The doctors revealed that if there had been a delay in treatment, Evie wouldn’t be able to walk or talk. But luckily, they performed the surgery before it was too late.
The procedure allowed the fluid in Amy’s head to drain into her bladder. A year later, Evie’s eyesight started to get better as the fluid drained and the pressure inside her head decreased. It seemed like Amy didn’t have to see her daughter go under the knife again, but that wasn’t true. Evie’s vision miraculously improved, and she started walking as she turned two. The little one still needed to wear glasses to see properly, though. Amy made her learn Makaton, after which her daughter also started to speak. Amy said:”The doctors admitted because of a delay in diagnosis, they weren’t sure what would happen.
They didn’t know if she’d ever be able to see or walk or talk.”As Evie grew older, Amy stopped worrying about her hydrocephalus. It seemed like her daughter had defeated the disease until, one day, the little one complained about unusual pain. In April 2019, Evie experienced unexplained headaches, which made Amy worry. She took Evie to the hospital again and discovered that the doctors had to perform another surgery because the pressure inside her head had unexpectedly increased.
The doctors had to put in another shunt because the previous one had got blocked. After the surgery, Evie never complained about the headaches again until almost two years later.Amy took Evie to the hospital in January 2021 when the little one complained about another headache. However, the pressure inside Evie’s head hadn’t increased this time. Instead, Evie was experiencing pain because her body didn’t need the shunt anymore. Amy said:
“The doctor couldn’t believe it – he thought we’d be in and out of the hospital every few years because the shunts kept blocking, but it turned out that somehow she’d cured herself!” The doctors said they hadn’t seen such a miracle before and weren’t expecting Evie to recover like that. Her recovery surprised them, but they still had to perform another surgery before they could allow her to go.It was difficult for Amy to see her little daughter undergo surgeries often. However, she had no choice but to wait patiently and pray for the surgeries to go well.
This time, the procedure involved removing two shunts, which was riskier and much more complicated than Evie’s earlier surgeries. Fortunately, Evie came out of the operation theatre after successful surgery, but she had to stay in the hospital for a few more days because she had viral meningitis. Evie was allowed to go home after she recovered from the viral infection. After going through the worst for years, Amy was relieved her daughter wouldn’t have to visit the hospital anytime soonEvie had to wear glasses to see correctly, but now, the 7-year-old girl doesn’t need to wear glasses.
She has regained normal vision and no longer requires her glasses to see around her. Amy recalled how she learned about it: “She was reading faster than I was. She was reading letters off the board that were just dots to me.” The doctors were astounded by Evie’s miraculous recovery. They were astounded to discover that the blind girl had regained perfect vision. They did, however, request that Amy have Evie’s eyes checked twice a year. Evie fought her illness bravely for many years.
Despite undergoing multiple surgeries, she never gave up. She went to the hairdresser thinking she was Rapunzel when the doctors asked her to have her head shaved before the final surgery. “In the hairdressers, they told her she’d been brave, and she said that just like Eugene cuts Rapunzel’s hair off to save her in Tangled, the doctors cut my hair off to save me,” Amy explained. Amy described her daughter as “phenomenal” for how she dealt with her pain as a child.
Meanwhile, Amy’s friends organized a fundraiser for Evie after she and her family went through a difficult time. They hoped Evie would never have to go to the hospital again for the same reasons. Share this story with your friends and family to tell them about Evie’s incredible journey and how Amy never gave up. Another story about a mother who noticed her daughter had stopped recognizing her after falling off a chair can be found here. When she went to the hospital with her child, the doctors refused to treat her.