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Jeans Day has special meaning this year for Langford family

Annual fundraiser for B.C. Children’s Hopsital hopes to raise $1.2 million
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Tricha Worobec and her son Konnor are celebrating being cancer free this Jeans Day. Konnor was at B.C. Children’s Hospital last week to get a prosthetic eye. Katherine Engqvist/News Gazette staff

Langford resident Tricha Worobec has spent her fair share of time at B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.

It all started with giving her youngest son, Konnor, a bath when he was just six weeks old. She noticed his pupil was glowing and just knew something was wrong.

“I knew it was a problem but I didn’t know what it was,” she explained, and while she was told to wait for a pediatric referral to see an optometrist, waiting was something she wasn’t willing to do. “I didn’t want to wait, I had a bad feeling,” she said. Instead, Worobec walked Konnor into an optical clinic in Langford. He was rushed in to see a doctor but couldn’t officially be diagnosed and was referred to an emergency ophthalmologist. That specialist told her to get on a ferry at once and Konnor was seen by a pediatric ophthalmologist in Vancouver the following morning.

“It was amazing how fast it was,” Worobec recalled. At just seven weeks old, Konnor had undergone several procedures and started chemotherapy to be treated for an extremely aggressive retinoblastoma. He underwent chemotherapy until he was about eight months old. But Worobec said even after the treatments, he continued to develop new tumors.

At the age of two, cancer was still present in Konnor’s right eye, so doctors tried a systematic approach, where the treatment was injected directly into his eye. Unfortunately, this comes with a number of side effects. “Whatever little vision he had was gone within a week,” Worobec noted, but that was something doctors had warned the family about throughout the process.

Roughly five-and-a-half weeks ago, on St. Patrick’s Day, Konnor had his right eye removed. He has been officially cancer free for more than a month now. But losing his eye hasn’t slowed down the happy toddler who’s now closing in on his third birthday. “He ran full speed out of the hospital,” Worobec said after the surgery.

“Konnor would have been dead before he was a year old if it wasn’t for B.C. Children’s … My gratitude is beyond words. You can’t express it enough when someone saves your kid,” she said. “When you’re in the darkest part of your life, these people facilitate your life … They make everything a smooth process in an awful time.”

When Konnor came out of surgery the team at B.C. Children’s had a little doll waiting for him, complete with matching eye patch. He was back in Vancouver last week, getting fitted with his new prosthetic eye just in time for Jeans Day.

Jeans Day, a fundraiser for the B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation, takes place Thursday (May 4). The goal is to raise more than $1.2 million for the Vancouver-based hospital that treats children from across the province. Jeans Day buttons can be purchased for $5 and lapel pins for $20 at a number of retailers including London Drugs, Thrifty Foods, Country Grocer and Save on Foods. For more information or to donate online, go to jeansday.ca.

katie@goldstreamgazette.com



Katherine Engqvist

About the Author: Katherine Engqvist

I took on the role of Bureau Chief when we created the Greater Victoria editorial hub in 2018.
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