After being diagnosed with rare eye cancer, Katie had her right eye removed when she was just four. Now, after wearing prosthetic eyes for the last 15 years, she is finding the confidence to be seen without one – and has signed with a modelling agency.
Comments used to leave her in tears but now says the experience made her “stronger”. Katie’s vision loss means she can be “clumsy” but it hasn’t stopped her gaining her driving licence or doing the things she wants.Despite losing the sight in one eye, Katie was determined to continue horse riding and has gone on to compete and win many competitions.
Katie’s condition was discovered after her mum, Gillian Elliott, 43, spotted her pupils were changing shape and that her eye would get “gunky”. Tests were run at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, and doctors discovered that the four-year-old had a 1cm grade A tumour in her right eye.Katie was diagnosed with retinoblastoma in May 2007. Katie had an operation to remove the eye that same month then underwent chemotherapy to treat the cancer cells in her body.
Katie said: “They would call me Mike Wazowski because I had one eye. Or people would say ‘one eye’s looking to the shop and one eye’s looking at you’. I used to cry in the bathroom.”In addition, Katie was worried she wouldn’t be able to ride a horse again, due to the change in her depth perception – something she has loved doing for as long as she can remember.
Undeterred, Katie has gone on to win many horse riding competitions including the overall prize at the East Kilbride rural show in 2020. It has taken a while for Katie to find herHELP OTHERS: Katie now has the courage to post photos without her prosthetic