When Michelle Saaiman noticed something unusual in her toddler’s eye, she never imagined “the eye melts away.” At first, she thought it was just an infection. But doctors told her 16-month-old Juwan had contracted herpes simplex virus (HSV), likely from “a kiss he received from someone with an active virus on their mouth.”
The doctor was telling me there’s a fever blister growing in my child’s cornea. I was literally looking at the doctor wondering whether it’s April 1,” Michelle recalled.

The virus attacked Juwan’s cornea, causing him to lose sight in that eye. “By that time, the herpes just caused so much damage that he essentially lost all feeling in the eye,” she said. The eye dried out when “the gel later protecting the eye evaporated.”

Juwan underwent amnion graft surgery in Cape Town and faces another operation to transfer nerves from his leg to his eye. Michelle shared, “Juwan is such a trooper… but he was in severe pain.”Although the virus is now contained, the damage is permanent. Michelle and her husband are raising awareness: “It’s not fair for such a tiny human to go through all that.”