Mom Found 2-Year-Old's Rare Eye Cancer By Watching the Baby Monitor

An Ohio mom credits her baby monitor with helping to discover her then-2-year-old daughter had a rare form of eye cancer.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, Draime’s daughter, Miley, had an eye that occasionally drifted, leaving her and her husband, Andrew, to assume the child had a lazy eye. The family’s pediatrician had referred them to an ophthalmologist, but there was a several-month wait for an appointment. Then, in the fall of 2025, Draime noticed a white glow in her daughter’s eye during bath time.

Draime, who tells her family’s story in a TikTok video, put her daughter to bed and started doing some online research. She started reading about retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer, and learned her daughter was already showing many of the symptoms of the disease. When she read online that some parents first noticed the condition in their kids because their eye appeared “black” (due to low light) in a baby monitor video, she checked on her daughter and noticed the eye she was concerned about appeared completely black while the other appeared normal on the feed.

The couple took Miley to a pediatric emergency department, where an ophthalmologist was called in. After an exam and ultrasound, the medical staff told the Draimes that Miley’s eye was almost completely consumed by a tumor and would have to be removed.

“Retinoblastoma has the highest cure rate of any childhood cancer,” said Dr. Arun Singh, an ocular oncologist at Cleveland Clinic. “Removing the eye is the most common treatment because leaving it intact risks letting the cancer spread to the brain or elsewhere in the body.”

A postoperative biopsy revealed that Miley would need chemotherapy because of the tumor’s size and location. Miley began chemotherapy just before Christmas in 2025, and finished her sixth and final session in May 2026.

“Chemotherapy may be needed when an enucleated eye has what we call ‘high-risk features,’ meaning retinoblastoma cells have spread to areas within the eye that increase the risk of the cancer spreading to the brain or other parts of the body,” said Dr. Stacey Zahler, a pediatric hematologist-oncologist at Cleveland Clinic. “This was the case for Miley.”

The family has since learned that Miley’s cancer was not genetic, meaning she does not face a higher risk of developing retinoblastoma in the other eye or elsewhere in her body. In June, Miley rang the end-of-treatment bell at Cleveland Clinic. Today, the 3-year-old has a prosthetic eye and is reportedly doing great.

“You wouldn’t know she’d had her eye removed,” Draime told Cleveland Clinic. “She does great navigating through life, and I can only occasionally tell she has one eye. It’s mind-blowing how well she is doing.”

Draime also said she speaks openly with her daughter about the illness and treatment she’s been through, hoping she lives knowing it’s part of her story, but not something to be ashamed of. “I just want her to be confident and know she’s beautiful,” she said.