News
| Patient stories
By way of Chicago — A young family’s journey
W
hen young mother Ashley Petroczky describes
the journey she and her family took to arrive
at the Emory Eye Center, the telling of it takes
a while. For good reason.
While readying for a family trip to Chicago in spring
2014, Petroczky, a pediatric nurse by profession, noticed that
her baby daughter’s eye looked a little strange. But she was a
“worrywart,” as she says, and didn’t think a lot more about it
that evening. When she mentioned it to her husband the next
day, they decided it was probably nothing, continued packing, and left Tallahassee, Fla., to board a plane to Chicago.
DAY 2
Later, in Chicago, under the dim light of an elevator, Petroc20 Emory Eye | 2015
zky again noticed that same “white” pupil when gazing into
her baby daughter Olivia’s face. This time her husband saw
it too. They instinctively knew something wasn’t right. Mom
and dad independently Googled what they had seen. Both
came up with retinoblastoma or RB, which, as she said, was
not what they wanted to find.
Petroczky hurriedly called their sister-in-law, an optometrist in Chicago, who suggested taking a photo of Olivia
to show the typical red reflex of the eye. Petroczky relates
that she was reluctant. But she did take it and sent it to the
sister-in-law. Olivia’s photo indeed showed the classic white
pupil, which can be an indicator of RB. Without even seeing
Olivia, the optometrist quickly made an appointment with
an ophthalmologist colleague for the next day, a Saturday.