A SOMERSET mother has thanked her optician for saving her son’s life after he detected the warning signs of a brain tumour during an eye examination.

Fletcher Earley, age 9 from Edington near Bridgwater, visited Eyetech Opticians in Street for a routine appointment which ultimately led to life-saving surgery.

Fletcher and his family are sharing their story to raise awareness about the importance of regular eye exams.

Fletcher attended Eyetech Opticians for a routine exam in April 2018 and was seen by optometrist Adrian Springett.

While Fletcher’s vision was perfect, his mother mentioned that he occasionally complained of headaches.

Adrian did some further investigations, scanning Fletcher’s retina on the practice’s OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) system.

The scan revealed that the head of the optic nerves at the back of Fletcher’s eyes was swollen.

Adrian advised Fletcher’s mother to book a GP appointment as soon as possible and urgently supplied the relevant information to the GP.

The GP referred Fletcher to Musgrove Park Hospital and just two days after his eye test, he had two MRI scans.

The scans confirmed that Fletcher had a brain tumour and cyst that were pressing on his brain and causing raised intra cranial pressure.

Fletcher underwent emergency surgery that week at Bristol Children’s Hospital to release the pressure and further surgery the following week to remove the tumour.

It was a number of days until the family had the conclusive results of the biopsy and that the tumour was benign.

Fletcher has almost fully recovered physically and has now returned to school part-time.

It will however take some time for life to return to normality after this huge trauma.

“If it hadn’t have been for the thorough eye test, examination and efficiency from Adrian, things could have been very different for our family.

We didn’t have any idea that our nine-year-old son was unwell, let alone living with a ticking time bomb inside his head,” said Mrs Earley.

“Eye tests for children are free and take such a short time, yet in this case saved our child’s life! We will never be able to thank Adrian enough.”

More details on Eyetech Opticians can be found at www.eyetech-opticians.co.uk.