Woman wears GOLD prosthetic eye after years of being bullied

By Nia Price via SWNS

A former barmaid is the real 'Goldeneye' - as she now proudly wears a GOLD prosthetic after years of being so badly bullied over her missing eye that she hated looking in the mirror.

Danni Winrow was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a rare type of eye cancer, when she was just six months old and subsequently had her right eye removed.

The 25-year-old has since worn a prosthetic eye and has endured bullying for as long as she can remember over 'looking different' - with classmates singling her out over her 'bog eye.'

Despite the 'constant' torment as a child, Danni claims the most cutting comments have come from grown men while working as a bar manager - with one punter giving her a $25 tip to 'go and fix' her 'dead eye.'

But meeting other eye cancer survivors last August made her realize she 'wasn't alone' and inspired her to remove her prosthetic eye for the first time in public, which was both a 'liberating' and transformative experience.

After years of lacking self-confidence, the civil servant now embraces her uniqueness by wearing a custom-made $200 bright gold sparkly eye, feels content seeing her reflection and is 'living her best life.'

Danni, of Liverpool, UK, said: "Now I take it [the prosthetic eye] out all the time and wear the gold one constantly because I don't care what people think.

"I just embrace my eye.

"I definitely show off my gold eye.

"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.

"When I look in the mirror now I feel a lot better, more comfortable and settled.

"I don't hate the way I look anymore."

Danni believes she had typical retinoblastoma symptoms as a baby - including a glow in her right eye and a distinctive squint, which is shown in some of her baby photos.

Danni said: "My mom 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.'

"But my mom was like 'no, there's definitely something wrong.'

"So they finally sent her to an optometrist who diagnosed me with retinoblastoma and basically said that if I hadn't gone that week I probably would have been dead within a week.

"It was obviously too late to try chemotherapy or radiation, so the only option was to remove my eye.

"I think I had it removed a few days later."

The civil servant said that she 'felt different' growing up, which her peers were aware of and would comment on from an early age.

Danni said: "I've never really had much self-confidence because I was bullied a lot for looking different.

"I've been bullied over my eye for my whole life, I don't really know any different.

"There'd be times where I'd rub my prosthetic eye when I was little in school and it would fall out and that was horrendous.

"Because I couldn't put it back in myself I'd have to sit there and wait for my mom or nan to come and pick me up and put it back in for me because obviously, the teachers couldn't do it so I'd have to get an eye patch and sit there with an eye patch on instead.

"When I was a teenager I got more self-conscious and started wearing my hair over my face to cover my eye and then when I got older I started pushing it back again.

"People would make nasty comments about how my eye looked. They'd say, 'oh look at her with that eye,' 'look at her bog eye,' or stuff like that."

Danni worked as a bar manager when she was 24 and said that the constant comments she'd receive from grown men at work stuck out for her the most.

Danni said: "I'd get comments like 'are you looking at me or are you looking at the person behind me?'

"One guy gave me a £20 ($25 USD) tip to 'go and fix my dead eye'. So I kept the money and kicked them out.

"You think grown men should know better rather than say things like that to a young girl.

"I've worn a prosthetic eye my whole life. I've never really used to take it out because I never used to like looking at myself in the mirror with it out.

"Whenever I used to go to appointments to get it cleaned or get a new one they'd tell me to look in the mirror and I wouldn't because I hated having it out and didn't like the way that I looked.

"I feel like bullying was why I didn't like myself with my eye in and obviously if I had comments with it in, I thought 'what are they going to say without it in?'."

Danni said she's used to have prosthetics made that were as close as possible in color to her other eye, but as she has a hazel one that turned greener, it became difficult to find a match and it 'never looked quite right.'

She found a woman on Instagram who created videos about removing her prosthetic eye and set up a day where around 20 others who have gone through similar ordeals met up.

After the event, Danni booked an appointment to have a gold eye fitted in November and she received it this February.

Danni said: "It was after that [meeting up with others] I was like 'oh, this is great.'

"I heard everyone's stories and knew that I wasn't alone and that other people had gone through it, because I'd never actually met anyone who had the same cancer as me and one eye.

"It just made me feel a lot more confident. That was the first time I took my prosthetic eye out in public and then took photos with it out.

"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.'

"So I got a bright gold sparkly eye and that's what I wear currently now."

She chose to have a gold eye made because she wears a lot of gold make-up and the color tends to bring out the green in her other eye.

Danni said: "Everyone was happy for me and all my friends were made up because they've obviously known about it for years and thought I should be more confident about it.

"So my boyfriend, mom and dad, they were all obviously happy that I was now happy with embracing it.

"I want to raise awareness.

"There was a little girl that we met on that day and I thought I'd love for her to grow up obviously not caring what people think.

"Because she's got people to look up to. I obviously didn't have anyone that I knew of with one eye or anyone older than me, like a role model.

"I'd tell others to just embrace it, you can't change it, you can't go back.

"Obviously if I didn't have my eye removed I wouldn't be here now, I can't hate it.

"I'm here and living my best life."