Sunshine in the Darkness: TEAM AVERY

Every cause seems to have a color or symbol associated with its awareness. Breast cancer awareness is symbolized by pink.  Ovarian cancer is associated with the color teal. Everyone knows that the color red symbolizes heart disease, and Autism awareness is a puzzle piece. But what color raises public awareness about pediatric visual impairment?

We don’t have a color (and really, do we need one?).  Vision is something most people take for granted, and probably don’t ever think about.  When someone from the general population has trouble seeing, the general course of action is to see an optometrist and obtain a pair of glasses. Problem solved, issue forgotten.  Sure, we’ve all heard stories about some unfortunate person who has been born sightless or gone blind…and for a moment it makes us sad.  But quickly we continue on with life. I’ll be honest and say I never gave very much thought about visual impairment.

That is, until it happened to me…or rather, to my 21-month old daughter, Avery.  As I will write about in detail later throughout this blog, my daughter began losing her sight sometime after her 18-month birthday.  The cause was something that most people consider a geriatric disease with an easy fix:  Cataracts.  However, in a baby, cataracts are much worse and have terrible implications for a child’s neurological, social, and emotional development.  With the majority of research showing that the greatest brain development takes place in the first five years of life, you can begin to understand why visual impairment at an early age is such a tragedy.

Those of you that know me have heard me sing the praises of The Delta Gamma Center for Visual Impairment here in St. Louis.  When the trauma of the diagnosis was over and the surgeries were finished, our family was left alone... clueless as to how to pick up the pieces of a life that would never be the same.  My husband and I had no idea how to help a visually impaired child, and were terrified by the thought that Avery would be never reach her potential because we were under-educated.  Thank God for the person who referred us to the DG Center.  Avery was plugged in to a system that would help her visual, neurogical, emotional, and behavioral delays; my husband and I were able to learn how to change our world to fit our daughter’s.  Most importantly, the entire family was given a place where we felt we belonged.

While I won’t go as far as to say my daughter is “lucky” to have congenital cataracts,  I will tell you that she is much more blessed than many of the kids at the Delta Gamma Center.  Avery is fortunate to possess hope for better vision; she wears cataract glasses that help her vision and will have future surgeries to attempt to improve her sight much more.  But many of these kids have a kind of cortical impairment that cannot be reversed. Essentially this means they will not improve with surgery or glasses, and for many that means a life of blindness.  At Delta Gamma we have made friends whose children, infants through preteens, have stories that would break your heart. Beautiful, lovable kids who just drew the short straw.  In so many of their situations, the visual impairment is not even their primary medical issue….just another struggle they must deal with.

For these kids and for my beloved Avery, I created Team Avery.  Last year through the contributions of our amazing friends and family, we raised over $3,500 for the Delta Gamma Center for Children with Visual Impairments. Can we beat that this year?  It’s a challenge, but I'm a girl who loves challenges.

This will be Team Avery’s second year in the Delta Gamma Center’s Run for Sight.  Last year there were only four of us running on a beautiful morning in May - and I KNOW we can do better this year. You can run, you can walk, you can stand on the sidelines and eat LaMar's doughnuts… just sign up, don your pink team shirt, and become a part of the Team Avery Army!

So back to my original question.  What is the color of pediatric visual impairment awareness?  This year it’s going to be pink; specifically, “Team Avery Pink.” Why pink?  Because it’s Avery’s favorite color, of course.