By the time Annabelle Geisler was just four years old, she had already had 30 eye surgeries.
Now seven, the young Christchurch girl is the rare one in 10,000 children in New Zealand born with glaucoma.
Typically, the eye condition, where the optic nerve connecting the eye to the brain is damaged, affects those over 60, but straight after birth, doctors noticed a difference in Annabelle.
“She was born with swollen eyes and they looked cloudy,” remembers her mum Maria Ferenza.
Since those first moments, Annabelle has had to adjust to a world she sees differently than others.
But Maria is always in her daughter’s corner, advocating for her, seeking out resources or creating them herself to improve Annabelle’s life and the lives of others with special needs, low vision and blindness.
“If you feel your child needs something, push for it,” shares Maria, 39, who is also mum to Sebastian, nine. “You have to fight for it. Nothing has come easily for my daughter. I always had to make it happen.
“Because of the uncertainty with Annabelle’s sight, we decided to introduce her to Braille when she was five years old, but I couldn’t find anything in New Zealand. Everything was from overseas and very expensive, or a bit of boring cardboard with some Braille letters. So, I got a 3D printer and started experimenting with making things. People were over the moon about the idea.”
Playing with some of the 3D resources Maria makes.
After six months of trial and error, Maria is now the only person in Aotearoa providing 3D-printed resources for the blind and low vision community through her small business Braille Designs NZ.
These include a host of washable, durable, engaging resources made from recycled plastic, including maps, games, puzzles and tablets with Braille.
Reflecting on life with her beloved daughter, Maria talks about the many surgeries Annabelle underwent and experiences she’s overcome so far.
As a baby, Annabelle’s eyes were so sensitive to light, even going outside was painful.
“We needed to stay in semi-darkness and our poor girl cried constantly,” recalls Maria.
“The ophthalmology team was quick to act. She had her first surgery at seven days old. After that, she had a surgery every couple of weeks while specialists tried to save the sight in her eyes. They started with the least invasive surgeries and worked their way up every time something didn’t work.”
Before she was one year old, Annabelle had bravely undergone 12 operations.
While doctors tried everything possible, an infection at age two destroyed the remaining sight in her left eye, and over time it became shrunken and discoloured.
Maria, who runs her resources business alongside working part-time as an aqua fit instructor, remembers fielding her daughter’s questions as she became more aware.
“You have two eyes – why do I just have one?” Annabelle would ask her devastated mum.
Baby Annabelle.
After more medical twists and turns, then Covid delays, finally Annabelle got a prosthetic eye in September 2020. Seeing herself for the first time after the surgery, four-year-old Annabelle was delighted, joyously telling Maria, “I have two eyes now too.”
Explains her mother, “It’s a plastic shell which slots into her eye socket and looks like a real eye.”
Despite her earliest years spent in and out of hospital, Maria describes Annabelle as “very clever and the sweetest girl, who is caring and funny with a determined, cheeky personality and ready to give everything a go”.
“The surgeries are very distressing for her, but if she has a couple of weeks with nothing medical going on, she is very accepting of it.”
She loves swimming and going to Clearview Primary in Rolleston, where she has between 15-20 hours of teacher aid assistance every week and is doing very well.
Annabelle, underwent her first operation at seven days old
While it’s been challenging, Maria is determined to never stop fighting for her daughter and the wider community.
“It’s great to know I can make life easier for those learning Braille,” says Maria, who spoke to the Weekly ahead of Blind Low Vision NZ appeal week this month. “I will keep creating things that will help.”
The nationwide organisation – which provides support and services to the 180,000 Kiwis living with blindness or low vision – were so taken with Maria’s resources, they now have them in their 20 Blind Low Vision NZ offices around the country.
Looking to the future, Maria has invested in an industrial 3D printer and is excited about what’s to come.
“Now we have the resources, we need to think outside the box,” she says.
To find out more about Braille Designs NZ, visit facebook.com/braillenz.
To donate to Blind Low Vision NZ Week, October 9-15, visit blindlowvision.org.nz/support-us/blind-low-vision-week
