Mom Who Lost Her Eye To Cancer Refuses To Wear Prosthetic After Recovering

Emma Cousins refuses to fill the void in her left eye after losing it to cancer. The 34-year-old mom says that she wants to be identified as a survivor of one of the world’s rarest forms of cancer.

The mom thought there was no need to cover up her scars and sealed it close.

Emma from Sheffield was told that she has mesenchymal chondrosarcoma, an extremely rare tumor that was left growing behind her eye for 15 years. It left undetected until Emma felt unwell one day and decided to get herself checked.

So rare was the illness that doctors told her she was “the only person in England” with it.

As part of the treatment, she needed to have her left eye removed. The socket has now been sealed with a patch of skin from her thigh. She’s now recovered; Emma can wear prosthetic eyes but has refused in order to keep her identity as a survivor.

“I am able to use a prosthetic plastic eye, and it looks perfectly normal. However, I do not want to,” she shared. “For starters, it’s a lot of messing around with glue, and you have to get it just right and for very little gain.”

“It makes me look right back to normal, and what is the point of that? I don’t want to look normal. I had cancer; I survived that, I don’t need to hide it.”

“My daughter is another reason I don’t wear the eye; she hates it and hates seeing it on me,” she revealed another reason. “My children have been my greatest support through all of this, and I could not have asked for more. 

“In fact, one day Megan (8) was doing something naughty, something she shouldn’t be, and she found the plastic eye in the same room as her. She came crying to me apologizing; she thought I could see through it.”

Emma has also been left crippled with part of her skin died due to the intensity of the radiotherapy treatment she received.

Her mobility has been limited, and navigating with one eye is a continuous struggle with her as well. Emma shared, “There are some things that are still difficult to navigate. Like doors, I have been walking through doors my entire life, but with one eye, I always bang into the frame.”

“I also don’t do drinks very well; I can’t pour milk without it spilling all over the place.”

“I have come up with hacks like placing the mouth of the container to the edge of the glass every time. There are all these little things that were completely second nature to me that I am learning to do again.”

“I have been given glasses to wear after my surgery so that nothing goes into and damages my remaining eye. However, the skin used to close my eye hole hasn’t healed properly yet, I have another nine months to go before I can wear the glasses.”

Emma also credited her healing to the support she’s receiving from the cancer community on social media. She related to the stories of many people there, which helped her cope and prepare for what’s to come.

“I started finding other people who have had the same kind of cancer as me when I was first diagnosed. The doctors had told me I would lose my eye, and I wanted to speak to someone with experience to know what I was in for,” she recalled.

“I could not have imagined the support and community I found on Instagram.”