The Story
Garrett Boone McMakin was born June 14, 1999 in a small town in Kentucky. He was a big boy and seemed healthy with the exception of having trouble keeping his blood sugar regulated at birth. At 3 months, we noticed he didn’t seem to try to focus on anything. After several attempts to get the doctor to agree with us, they finally sent us to a specialist. We were like most parents would be and didn’t expect anything more than, “Your son needs glasses.” We were completely taken back when the doctor looked at us straight in the face and told us he was blind. He has a condition called optic nerve hypoplasia. Meaning, his optic nerves did not fully develop when he was in utero. His eyes were not the problem. It was the nerves that told his brain what his eyes were seeing. Of course we told them to fix it, but again were bluntly told that was not an option. His condition was untreatable. That was the hardest thing to hear and to accept. How could this be? He was perfect!!
The doctor told us that he had very little light perception, but the good news was that it could gradually get better with time but not to expect anything drastic. Eight and a half years later, his eyesight has improved an unbelievable amount! His last eye report shows that his vision is to be somewhere around 20/1000. That is much better than the “he’ll never be able to read print, never be able to drive, and never be able to go to a public school” opinion that the first doctor gave us! He still is legally blind and that is a challenge for him. He is now in the second grade, but is way behind his peers. He started trying Braille last summer, but the interest didn’t last long and he didn’t seem to be able to put it all together. We are now trying large print but it is hard for him. Garrett may be 8, but his understanding is more on the lines of a 5 year old because of his loss of vision.
Just last March he began gaining a lot of weight and we took him to Cincinnati Children’s hospital to see an endocrinologist. After having some tests, we learned that Garrett’s thyroid is sluggish and his adrenal glands do not produce enough hormone for his body to cope with stress of illness, surgeries, and such. He now has to take medicine daily for this.