Nathan

“I was diagnosed with Coats disease when I was 11 years old. The yearly eye sight and hearing screening at school is who tipped my parents off that something was aloof with my vision. Personally I knew my vision wasn’t great in my left eye but I was so worried about having to wear glasses […]

Karen

“When I was about eleven, I realized I did not have full vision in my right eye. I remember being with my friend Stacy and asking each other eye doctor questions (“what do you see when you cover your left eye” kind of stuff). I cannot remember if I immediately told my mom or if […]

Sherry

“My name is Sherry De La Torre. I am 35 years old, married with three children, living in Santa Rosa, California. I found my best friend at age 14 and we have been together since graduating high school in 1995. We had our daughter in September 1996, married in February 1998, then we had our […]

Chris

“It has been a long time since I have gone in depth about my eye and Coats Disease. A lot of my friends don’t even know I have this disease. I did not know what to expect at the Jack McGovern Coats Disease Foundation conference in San Francisco, CA. What came out of it was […]

Sammie

Written by his mom, Jennie Howard. “On 11/11/11, we took our son, Sammie, to the eye Dr. for a wandering eye. I had prepared myself that we were going to leave with a patch. Not having a clue what was coming. We took all 3 boys with us and ended up being there almost 2 […]

Tyler

Written by his mother and advisory board member, Nancy Payton, about her son Tyler. “My son Tyler was diagnosed in January 2012 with Coats Disease. Never heard of it? Most people, even physicians, have not. It is an extremely rare, progressive eye disease that leads to vision loss / blindness. There is little to no […]

Jaxon

Advisory board member, Elke Gibbs, and her family have been an incredible inspiration to us here at JMCDF. Below, Elke recounts her son Jaxon’s struggle with Coats and how they have been working with us to raise awareness around Coats Disease. “When our son Jaxon was diagnosed on December 30, 2011, he was 2 years. […]

Chace

Written by his son, Jessica. “I had my son Chace on April 1, 2012. He just turned 10 months and around 3 months of age I knew something was wrong with his left eye. I took him to an ophthalmologist who told me he had retinoschisis, but he was not a retina specialist and immediately […]

Christian

Written by Paola Aldana, Christian’s mom. “God bless moms for their God given intuition for it was my mom, whom, when my baby was around one, first noticed something was not “normal” with his left eye. She told me that if I observed him closely that I would notice his left eye involuntarily wander, or, […]

Ashley

Written by his father, Tyson. “When Ashley was about 2 years old, we started to notice that he might be having issues with his eyes. Ashley’s mom would play peek-a-boo with him in the morning and one morning noticed something seemed off, as if he was staring through her. She also noticed that one eye […]