A little girl who went viral due to the color of her eyes earlier this year has sadly lost them due to a rare genetic disorder.
Primrose Austin, who was adopted from China by American parents in 2016, was born with “piercing” blue eyes as a result of congenital glaucoma. The little girl’s story went viral after her adopted mother, Eryn Austin, opened up about how seeing a photo of her on Facebook eventually motivated her and her husband to travel to China to adopt her.
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According to CafeMom, doctors recently revealed Primrose’s parents that her eyes would have to be removed in order to ease the pain caused by the illness.
When Eryn and her husband Chris brought the little girl to her new home in Georgia, doctors diagnosed her with 6p25 deletion syndrome, a disorder that caused her eye and skeletal abnormalities, hearing loss, lack of muscle tone and other issues, Little Things writes.
Her congenital glaucoma caused pressure to build up being the eye sockets and retinal detachment to occur in one eye. The pain led to Primrose’s hospitalization in September 2018. At the time, doctors advised removing her left eye would reduce her pain, and just one week later they removed the right one.
Back in March, Primrose reportedly received painted implants with irises and pupils and is doing much better.
“We’re not concerned about her future,” her mom shared in a video for Caters News Agency. “I think she’s going to be completely independent.”
Eryn previously revealed that after adopting Primrose, she and her husband learned she was severely malnourished and had trouble learning how to sit up.
“We taught her how to swallow liquids, we taught her how to eat food, we taught her how to play, how to be touched, how to be held … all of those things,” Eryn said in the video.
In a story for CafeMom, Eryn recently opened up about adopting Primrose and how she has changed her family’s life.
“Primrose is a light. Her joy is all encompassing. Her laughter is infectious and her brilliant mind ever a mystery. Her spirit is wild and ferocious. Her face is pure magic. Our life is complete with her here,” She wrote in January. “Truly. And I say that never meaning that life is perfect. You cannot walk through life without HARDSHIP, right? None of us is immune to struggle. We did choose her. We chose this life. We chose this hard. But, man. It is absolutely an honor to be her parents, her family.”
