CARLA, 28, lives in Mississippi with her 5-year-old daughter Riley and fiance Luke. Carla was diagnosed with Bilateral Retinoblastoma when she was just 3. The cancer was in her eyes leading her to have her left eye removed. Her daughter Riley was diagnosed with the same condition at 6 months old and had her right eye removed aged 2. Both mother and daughter now have a prosthetic eye each. Carla told Truly: “One thing I really feared was it affecting her at a young age.” But against all odds Riley has turned out to be a very confident young lady, Carla said: “She tells me all the time ‘mumma, I’m beautiful’.” Carla wasn’t so confident growing up and said “until I was 21 I literally hid behind my hair”. Carla started entering Riley in beauty pageants and making TikTok videos with her to boost her confidence and reassure her of her beauty but they’ve received a lot of judgmental comments. One video in particular of them removing their prosthetic eyes received comments like; “you poked her eye out so you would match” and “irresponsible to have a child knowing you would bring that pain to them.” Carla’s response to those people is “we don’t care… God had a purpose for her”, and looks forward to a bright future for her daughter.
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00:00 My daughter and I both had eye removed due to cancer.
00:03 How do you feel when I do your hair?
00:06 (laughing)
00:09 Do you feel pretty?
00:10 Show 'em your sassy pageant faces.
00:13 Do you like pageants?
00:17 You ready?
00:19 Ah, oh, no.
00:23 (laughing)
00:23 Let's see whose eyes bigger and smaller.
00:26 This retinoblastoma is cancer in one eye,
00:29 and when you have bilateral, it's in both eyes.
00:32 When you have it in, you can't even feel it.
00:34 I guess it's like a part of us.
00:36 You know, let's skip it in.
00:37 (laughing)
00:42 When you have bilateral, like when it's in both eyes,
00:45 it is hereditary, it's like a 50/50 chance
00:47 it can be passed on to your children.
00:49 I was quicker 'cause I was the first one to get it in.
00:54 Yeah, I bet you were, whatever.
00:56 I win.
00:57 No, I win.
00:58 Okay, you win.
00:59 (imitating car engine)
01:01 No!
01:02 Oh my goodness, what are you doing?
01:06 I was diagnosed at three years old.
01:08 So my mom had noticed something about my eye,
01:11 so she had taken me to an eye doctor.
01:14 I was cooking, they were in the living room downstairs,
01:16 and I said, "Did y'all come eat supper?"
01:18 And Carla was sitting on the floor playing with Barbies.
01:21 And she just looked straight up at me.
01:23 And one eye was looking at me,
01:24 and the other one was looking the other way,
01:26 and I just, my jaw just dropped.
01:29 Carla wasn't quite three years old yet, and--
01:32 I know, you're gonna cry.
01:35 It goes back a long ways.
01:36 What was the prognosis?
01:42 She had bilateral retinoblastoma.
01:44 That means there's tumors in both eyes.
01:45 And her left eye was like,
01:48 hers was covered like a glove in a ball.
01:51 And he said, "She's already blind in the eye."
01:54 And I said, "Okay."
01:56 And he said, "Maybe two weeks."
01:59 And I said, "Maybe two weeks of what?"
02:03 And my husband looked at me, and I looked at him,
02:05 and I said, "No, no, no, no, no.
02:07 "My baby's not dying.
02:10 "I'm not leaving this hospital without that child
02:12 "going on with me, they're a brother and sister."
02:14 We went there for about three, four days.
02:21 And then he said, "We're gonna do chemo,
02:22 "and we're gonna do freezing treatments on the right eye."
02:24 He said, "I think we can save it."
02:26 And then a year went by, she was almost four,
02:30 and I noticed that something I could see
02:33 when she would do her eye to the side,
02:35 it was like you could see the tumor.
02:38 It was coming back.
02:39 And the next morning, Carla went into surgery.
02:43 I was almost four years old when I had my eye removed.
02:46 When that doctor came out and said,
02:48 "She's cancer-free."
02:51 It's like I could breathe again.
02:52 Oh God, you know, it's over.
02:54 I do still live with the condition.
02:56 I do have a tumor in my right eye.
02:58 I did freezing treatments as a child, so it's frozen.
03:01 We tried to keep it as normal as possible,
03:03 and I didn't treat her any different.
03:05 I tried not to.
03:06 - So fast forward, she's a teenager.
03:10 - Oh Lord.
03:11 I guess she's like any other teenager.
03:14 She was rebellious.
03:16 I got pregnant, it happened, you know.
03:18 I would never call my kid a mistake,
03:19 but it definitely wasn't planned.
03:21 I was 18, you know.
03:22 But of course, I don't trade that for anything.
03:26 - And I said, "We're gonna have a baby."
03:27 So, you know, I said about it.
03:28 - There was no other option for us, you know.
03:31 - I mean, abortion's off the table.
03:32 You know, you're gonna have this baby,
03:34 and if it turns out she does, so be it.
03:37 We're gonna live this.
03:38 We've already done it, I've done it,
03:40 and you can do it too.
03:41 You're just as strong as I am, so.
03:43 - So you immediately thought of the possibility
03:45 that the baby would have the same?
03:47 - Yes, you know, it was a 50/50 chance.
03:49 But, you know, Carla always thought, you know,
03:52 it's not gonna happen to me.
03:53 - When she was six months old,
03:56 that's when the doctor came in,
03:58 and he was just like, "There's a tumor in her right eye."
04:01 If we don't do something that, you know,
04:04 it's the stem to the brain.
04:05 So if it goes to her brain, there's nothing they can do.
04:08 I literally just said no,
04:11 and I just walked out and just started crying.
04:14 - How old was she then?
04:16 - She was two years old when she had her eye removed.
04:19 - I don't know how I'd have done it without my mom.
04:22 Like, seriously, like,
04:23 she's kind of like the rock of our family, you know?
04:26 - One thing that I always feared
04:28 was it like really affecting her at a young age.
04:30 But the second she got home and she got around her cousins,
04:32 it's like, she's this confident kid.
04:34 I thought it was gonna affect her in like this major way,
04:36 and it just didn't.
04:37 Like, she's just so confident.
04:40 Like, she'll tell me all the time, "Mama, I'm beautiful."
04:42 And I'm like, "Girl, yeah, you are."
04:45 Hey, you're gonna be on that show making those silly faces.
04:49 Don't you wanna make cute faces?
04:51 - Riley has changed my life completely.
04:53 I think the condition affected me growing up.
04:55 Until I was 21, I literally hid behind my hair.
04:59 I remember the day she had her eye removed,
05:01 and we came home, I like went in the mirror,
05:03 and I was like, I went from like this,
05:07 and I just went just like this,
05:08 and I was like, never again.
05:10 You know, she came in and she gave me
05:11 like a whole new mindset,
05:13 and this hair has been back ever since.
05:15 What do you feel like when you put on a pretty dress?
05:17 - This makes me feel like a princess,
05:19 and this makes me feel like a queen.
05:22 - No.
05:23 Her first pageant, she was three years old.
05:27 Oh, she was wearing like a cute little bathing suit.
05:29 It was a whole piece, and she had a little bow.
05:31 It was way too big for her head,
05:33 but it was absolutely so cute.
05:35 Of course, she didn't win, but we had fun.
05:37 - I wanted to try this one.
05:39 - Okay.
05:41 All right.
05:41 - I wanna do it.
05:43 - Let's see.
05:46 All right, you can show her exactly how you do it.
05:48 Just do the regular walk.
05:50 Oh, she loves them.
05:52 - Show pretty eyes, pretty blinky.
05:54 - And pageants don't just give us a way to feel confident.
05:58 It's given us so many ways to give back and stuff,
06:00 and she's been able to raise a ton of money for foundation.
06:03 Good job!
06:05 - And here's my favorite crown.
06:09 I like this one.
06:11 - Can you put it on your head and show her?
06:13 You can definitely tell in our small town
06:15 that people do judge people in pageants,
06:17 and they're like, "Why would you put makeup and hair
06:19 "in your kid or give her fake spray tans?"
06:21 and stuff like that.
06:23 I mean, that's just how we do it.
06:24 We like to do it.
06:26 It's not your business.
06:27 So Lou came into the picture when Riley was one years old.
06:31 Okay, all right, now swing.
06:33 - Yeah.
06:35 - My mom always said that they would just fall
06:37 out of the sky.
06:38 When he came along two months later,
06:39 Riley had to have her eye removed,
06:41 and that was hard, and he just was there.
06:44 It was like he was there the whole time.
06:46 - Are you ready?
06:47 - Yeah.
06:47 - Here we go.
06:48 - She started calling him daddy,
06:49 and he just walked right into that role,
06:52 and that's where he's been since then.
06:54 You're on to me, man, give her a hug.
06:57 - Little boy.
06:58 - Okay, at some point you decided to tell your spray
07:01 on social media.
07:02 - I think she was two.
07:04 We were just in the bathroom, my hair's a mess,
07:06 and we're just in there, and I was like,
07:07 "Let's take our eyes out and embrace us," you know?
07:10 'Cause I wanted her to feel confident.
07:11 This shouldn't be a taboo to her,
07:13 and my phone's just like, whoop, whoop, whoop,
07:15 and millions of people are watching our video,
07:17 and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, Luke, our video's gone viral."
07:20 (laughs)
07:21 So my family, they loved it,
07:23 but they were just like, "Y'all are so cute."
07:25 Of course there was mean comments.
07:26 Are you sick?
07:27 You took your baby's eye out just for this.
07:30 You poked her eye out so you would match.
07:32 Irresponsible to have a child knowing
07:34 you would bring that pain to them.
07:36 I would tell them we don't care.
07:39 Things happen, God had a purpose for her.
07:42 She's here, and she's here for a reason, so.
07:44 Come on, pretty girl.
07:45 Go, pretty.
07:47 Give mommy a hug.
07:48 (laughs)
07:49 - What do you hope for your baby?
07:52 - Marriage.
07:53 - Gross.
07:54 - More babies.
07:55 IVF and PGT testing, they can literally go in there
07:58 and pick out the ones that has the genetic mutation,
08:01 poke them right on out, and then give me babies
08:03 who won't have the same cancer as us.
08:06 Give daddy a hug.
08:06 (laughs)
08:09 What I hope for Riley is that she just keeps on doing
08:11 whatever makes her happy, you know?
08:13 Whether it be pageants or sports or the band.
08:17 Whatever comes next for Riley,
08:18 I'm just here to support her no matter what.
08:20 - I always had a feeling everything was gonna be okay,
08:22 and maybe that feeling that everything was gonna be okay
08:25 was actually right.
08:27 It just had to be bad before it could be okay.
08:30 (gentle music)
08:32 (gentle music)
08:35 (gentle music)
08:38 (gentle music)
08:40 (gentle music)
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