By Wally Kennedy

wkennedy@joplinglobe.com

WEBB CITY, Mo. — Rylea Barlett was born blind six years ago today. Her optic nerves did not develop. She was diagnosed when she was a few months old. Doctor after doctor gave her no hope of ever seeing.

On July 4, the girl received the first of five stem-cell transplants. The stem cells were from umbilical cords. The transplants were done in a remote hospital in China.

Her mother, Dawn Barlett, was told not to expect anything for months. One week after the first transplant, her daughter was responding to the glow of a penlight.

“Three weeks ago on Sunday (Aug. 12), she asked me to get the penlight,” Barlett said. “She wanted to show me where the light was. She kept grabbing at it. She could see the high contrast.”

Then it occurred to Barlett that Rylea might be able to distinguish the features of a person’s face.

“I told her I wanted to show her something,” Barlett said. “I held my breath and put my face in front of her face. I pulled away and asked her what she saw.

“She said: ‘I saw my Mommy. Mommy, you are beautiful.”’

‘Uncharted territory’

For Barlett, the years of continually searching for ways to bring sight to her daughter’s hazel eyes, the raising of thousands of dollars through donations, the trip to the other side of the globe and the unknowns associated with an experimental treatment — at that moment — had all been worth it.

“I started bawling,” Barlett said. “She could identify everyone. She had never seen her brother, her sister or me. She had never been able to see — other than to feel — a person’s face. She could now put a face with a person.

“What we are seeing now, they did not expect for us to have. We’re building nerves.”

Rylea could be the first patient anywhere with optic-nerve hypoplasia to benefit from stem-cell transplants from umbilical cords.

Larry Brothers, her optometrist in Joplin, said: “Her optic nerves did not work. They would not send light back to the brain. People with optic-nerve hypoplasia never develop vision. This is the first case ever — since the Bible — where someone’s sight has been restored.