Canadian family travels the world in search of 'visual memories' for children who will become blind

Canadian family travels the world in search of ‘visual memories’ for children who will become blind | Fantastic

Posted On: February 23, 2023

A family decides to travel with children before they go blind

An eye disease that leads to blindness has transformed the life of a Canadian family. They decided to travel the world to show their children the beauty of our planet, before they lose sight of it.

Edith and Sébastien’s family does not do ordinary tourism. They create precious memories..

The Canadians have four children: Mia, 12, Léo, 9, Colin, 7 and Laurent, 5. Mia was the first to be diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare disease that causes progressive vision degeneration..

Parents began to take the girl to explore nature while she still sees far. Subsequently, the doctors discovered that Colin and Laurent also had the disease. So they decided to take literally the tips to fill your eyes with memories.

“The specialist told me, ‘Fill in their visual memory. Use books so they see what an elephant, giraffe is, so they have visual cues when they go blind.” Then it clicked: if I’m going to show things in books, why not show them in real life? So we thought of a great way to show them all that is beautiful in this world. This is how the journey began,” says Edith Lamay.

After three of the four children were diagnosed with the disease, the parents decided to leave everything behind for a year, to travel the world and create visual records that will live on in the memoryeven after the children have lost their sight.

A couple travels the world before their children lose their sight to a rare disease — Photo: Reproduction/ Instagram The world in their eyes

The doctors then suggested walking around in open and wide places – which will no longer be captured by children as the retina degenerates.

In search of “visual memories”, a Canadian family travels the world before the children went blind

So far, the family has traveled to six countries on three continents.. For now, Brazil is just a dream, which is in the plans.

“With the disease they will have to be resilient, because they will have to adapt all the time because they lose their sight. Today they walk independently, but maybe one day they will need a cane You will constantly have to adapt. This teaches that focusing on what is bad, uncomfortable, only makes the situation worse. If you focus on what is good, on what you can control, you can find solutions. and everything becomes easier,” explains Edith.

Everyone chose a favorite moment of the trip. Unforgettable memories and also a lot of learning. Find out more in the video above..

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