MARIAM – A DECADE LATER

SEE HOW MARIAM AND HER FAMILY ARE DOING 10 YEARS AFTER MARIAM’S SURGERY

“When I remember all the challenges we faced, it’s hard to believe that we went through all that,” Mariam’s father, Michael, remembers. About 10 years ago, Michael’s daughter, Mariam, was born prematurely. As a consequence, Mariam was diagnosed with Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), a debilitating eye disease found in premature infants that leads to blindness if left untreated.

Luckily, in 2010, the Armenian EyeCare Project (AECP) had developed a ROP Program in Armenia, which includes a cutting-edge Center of Excellence for the Prevention of Childhood Blindness located inside the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in Yerevan.

After an eight-hour surgery, Mariam’s sight was saved. She would not go blind from ROP. “That day was a celebration for us,” Marineh, Mariam’s mother, remembers. “It was as if Mariam was born again.”

Now Mariam is 11 years old. She attends school and even participates in an art program. Mariam’s parents are also able to continue their work and provide for their family.

Mariam’s father often thinks about how different his life would be had it not been for Mariam’s sight-saving procedure: “Every day when I pick her up from school… every time I see her smile… I’m reminded of the past… reminded that if her blindness wasn’t cured, none of this would exist. She wouldn’t see me from a distance and smile at me. It’s a whole other world now. A special life.”

Since AECP began its ROP Program in Armenia, over 40,000 infants have been screened in the country and about 500 babies treated. These are babies who would have otherwise gone blind had it not been for this intervention at infancy and subsequent procedure. Since the beginning of AECP’s revolutionary ROP Program, no child in Armenia has gone blind from ROP. Mariam is just one of countless success stories.