A CORK baby who was born with no eyes has surprised his doctors and physiotherapist by walking months earlier than expected.
Fifteen-month-old Jacob Nowak suffers from a rare condition called anophthalmia, which means he was born with neither eyes nor optic nerves.
In August, he started intensive physiotherapy treatment, which his parents hoped might have him crawling before Christmas. He has surpassed such hopes and at the weekend took his first steps.
His father Mariusz said yesterday: “Our physiotherapist has been superb and Jacob started crawling a month ago, which was far earlier than we could have ever dreamt of. Then a couple of days ago he took two or three steps on his own for the first time, holding on to the wall. It’s really been the greatest Christmas present we could ever have wished for.”
Once Jacob starts walking freely, he will have to be taught to use a stick by a mobility instructor from the National Council for the Blind.
“He’s very close to walking on his own, but he will have to use a little white stick to get around,” said Mariusz. “At the moment he looks like any other baby and you wouldn’t notice he was blind, so it will be a bit upsetting to see him using the stick for the first time.”
Jacob travels every three months to Germany to get prosthetic eyes and socket extenders fitted into his head, to make sure his face and skull develop properly. The expensive treatment at a specialist hospital is likely to cost more than €300,000 and last until Jacob is six.
With no funding available from the Health Service Executive, Mariusz and his wife Wiola, from Poland, have been dependent on public donations. The couple, both 29, who also have a six-year-old daughter Paula, said they have been “flabbergasted” by the generosity of the Irish public, which also enabled them to employ the physiotherapist.