Self-Confidence is the Best Way to Fight Bullying
- Danni Winrow, 25, has been bullied her whole entire life after losing her right eye at just six months old due to retinoblastoma, which is a rare cancer of the retina.
- The bar manager from Liverpool, England is now learning to love herself, clapping back at trolls, and celebrating her “uniqueness,” by getting a sparkly, gold eye.
- If it weren’t for her lifesaving procedure as a baby, Danni would have lost her life. The effects of cancer can be tough, but embracing the gift of lifeand having a little fun with itis the best way to get through the tougher days.
The bar manager from Liverpool, England is now learning to love herself, clapping back at trolls, and having a little fun with her “uniqueness,” by getting a sparkly, gold eye.
Read MoreThe reason for her newfound confidence? A custom-made “bright gold sparkly eye.
“I love wearing my different eye and I go without it,” she said. “It just felt like a weight off my shoulders because that’s what I wanted – I wanted to be happy and feel good in myself.”
Danni’s Retinoblastoma Diagnosis
As a baby, Danni presented symptoms including a “glow” in her right eye, along with a “distinctive squint.”
“My mum kept taking me to the doctors because I kept crying and she knew there was something wrong but the doctors kept saying ‘no, she’s fine. She’s just a baby.'”
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“But my mum was like ‘no, there’s definitely something wrong,'” Danni expressed of her mother’s advocacy.
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Finally, an optometrist diagnosed Danni with retinoblastoma, and she immediately had a life-saving procedure to remove her eye. If Danni’s mother wouldn’t have pushed for her diagnosis, her baby girl “would have been dead within a week.”
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Bullied for Having One Eye
Childhood was tough for Danni as she got horribly teased at school, but she says the worst comments have come from rude bar patrons.
“I’d get comments like ‘are you looking at me or are you looking at the person behind me?’ You think grown men should know better rather than say things like that to a young girl,” Danni expressed.
Finally, she had had enough and decided she’s just going to have fun with what has been handed to her.
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“Last year I thought ‘you know what, I’m just going to go with it. If everyone’s going to comment on it anyway I might as well get something fun’,” Danni explained.
To the people out there who are going through something similar? “I’d tell others to just embrace it, you can’t change it, you can’t go back,” Danni advised.
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