Latest news with #Elsie
Newsweek
07-06-2025
- Health
- Newsweek
Parents Welcome Baby Girl, 4 Months Later They Realize Something Is Wrong
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. The mother of a 6-year-old girl has shared the story of learning her daughter was born blind, and how far they have come together as a family. Skin specialist Hayley Steinbach, 30, lives in Essex in the U.K. with her builder husband, Zak, 31, and their three children, including daughter Elsie. She was diagnosed with optic nerve hypoplasia as a baby—but getting that initial diagnosis was far from easy. "The moment I realized Elsie, at 4 months old, wasn't tracking anything properly, I was so confused and concerned," Steinbach told Newsweek. "Our doctor had told me eight times that Elsie's eyes were OK, and it was just a blocked tear duct." Elsie is the couple's first child, and so the new parents were "unaware of how delayed her vision was—we thought it was normal eye behavior for a newborn." But when Steinbach realized her daughter wasn't able to give her any eye contact at all, she returned to the doctor and pleaded for help. This time, the doctor shared her concern, and asked her to step out of the room as he made an immediate hospital appointment for the baby girl. "As soon as I walked out, into the waiting room, I broke down and rang for my husband to come immediately as my legs went to jelly—I was so scared for Elsie," Steinbach said. "Five days later she was diagnosed with optic nerve hypoplasia. We had no idea what this condition was, and what this meant for our baby girl." Optic nerve hypoplasia is a congenital disorder where the optic nerves in the eye are underdeveloped. While the cause of ONH is not yet understood, it can lead to abnormal eye movements, and can lead to a person having no light perception at all, according to the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD). Left, Hayley Steinbach, Zak embrace Elsie on the day she was born; and, right, the baby aged 6 weeks. Left, Hayley Steinbach, Zak embrace Elsie on the day she was born; and, right, the baby aged 6 weeks. TikTok @elsieseyearmy Recalling those terrifying early days, Steinbach said: "My world went black and went quiet like when someone dies—I felt heartbroken and gut sick. I was terrified for Elsie, and I had no idea what was best for her. We were new to becoming parents, and now we were new to how to help someone who's blind. "I'd never even met a blind person before, never knew what Braille was. We were completely clueless, which made it so scary—and no one else around us could help us, no one around us knew what was best for Elsie or how any of us could help Elsie the best." The couple were "so worried and scared for her future"—but, together, the family got through it. Steinbach and Zak learned alongside Elsie as she navigated the world, including learning Braille, as they knew it would "now be a part of our life, and we would need to know it to be able to teach Elsie." As time went on, they learned that Elsie has "no vision in her right eye, and [in] her left eye, she has minimal vision, but she uses that vision to her fullest." "Elsie's eyesight has gone against what the consultants said and still say now; they are amazed at what she can do with the small amount of vision she does have," proud mom Steinbach said. She added that Elsie's optic nerves are the "same size in both eyes," so it is a "miracle" she has any sight in her left eye. Elsie now wears glasses to help her left eye with long-sightedness, and uses both Braille and size-72 text to read and work at school. And, close to seven years after that first terrifying diagnosis, her mom says Elsie has "made all my thoughts and worries go away." "There is nothing she's not able to do like a child her age, but she just does it in her own little way and is teaching us along the way. "Elsie is full of confidence and no fear; she does everything! I never imagined her life to be so 'normal'. Elsie is incredible and amazes us every single day; she is the happiest little girl you could meet." The little girl, described as "extremely confident," is now an older sister to Dolsie, 3, and 2-year-old Elvis, and has big plans for her life, as her mother said her daughter "wants to be a performer—acting, singing, dancing." Left, the family smile on a trip to Disney not long after Elsie's diagnosis, and right, the girl now, aged 6. Left, the family smile on a trip to Disney not long after Elsie's diagnosis, and right, the girl now, aged 6. TikTok @elsieseyearmy Steinbach shared Elsie's story to her TikTok account, @elsieseyearmy, where she wrote in a caption that she hopes it can "help families in [those] dark few months see that being blind won't stop your baby from doing anything." It had a major online reaction, racking up close to 3 million views and more than 92,000 likes, as commenters flocked to the video asking questions about Elsie and her journey, and some sharing their own experiences with ONH. A fellow parent wrote: "My little boy was thought to be completely blind for life but is now just completely blind in his left eye and has 6/38 vision in his right and gets on with life almost as a normal sighted child, I don't understand how but he's amazing." Another urged Elsie's parents to continue to "love her and encourage everything, be her biggest cheerleader," as a third posted: "What absolutely beautiful parents you are. She is utterly perfect in every way." And as one comment read: "Sweet Elsie! I wish you a life full of joy and happiness in the best form available! God Bless you!" Steinbach said: "I think mine and my husband's worries for Elsie will always be there; through every stage of Elsie's life, we will worry she will struggle and come up with more challenges. But, with Elsie's personality and determination, we know Elsie will not let anything affect her—it will affect us more as parents watching her." In a message to everyone learning about Elsie's story, Steinbach added: "Elsie is blind, despite the small bit of vision she does have. "Being blind does not mean seeing nothing; it means being severely sight-impaired, like Elsie is. Being blind does not stop Elsie from doing anything; she just does it in her own way."
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Dragonfly' Review: Andrea Riseborough And Brenda Blethyn Give Wings To Paul Andrew Williams' Poignant Neighborhood Drama
Paul Andrew Williams's feature debut was called London to Brighton (2006), but the British director has never been much interested in capital cities. His latest, Dragonfly, is another example of this, being a dark, low-key drama about the ways in which the unnoticed lives of suburban people can make surprising headlines. In a direct way, it's a sister piece to his provocative 2010 home invasion film Cherry Tree Lane, in which—pre-empting Adolescence—a middle-class couple's humdrum live is turned upside down when they are inexplicably attacked by violent teenage rebels without any apparent cause. In reality, though—and despite the blood spilt both onscreen and off—it turns out to be more like the film Williams made in 2012. Called Song for Marion, it starred Terence Stamp as an emotionally shut-down widower who joins a choir to pay homage to his late wife (Vanessa Redgrave). It wasn't a commercial success, and Dragonfly may not be either, but the new film makes better use of that film's ingredients: themes of loneliness, regret, bereavement, self-worth and family. And like Song for Marion, it has quite the cast: two Oscar nominees playing just outside their age range and beyond their comfort zones. More from Deadline Editors Guild Protests Against Nonfiction Producer Story Syndicate At Tribeca Premiere Of OceanGate Submersible Documentary 'Titan' As Tribeca Kicks Off, Toppers Weigh In On Their Growing Festival & Standing Up To Donald Trump Banijay Appoints Factual Drama Chief There's little to no vanity here in the central pairing of Brenda Blethyn, as the elderly widow Elsie, and Andrea Riseborough, as her unemployed neighbor Colleen, and the two very different actors' styles work perfectly together. The film's opening ten minutes sets up the two women's lives with a poignant economy: living in back-to-back bungalows, they lead eerily similar lives, like ghosts. Elsie had a life once and misses it bitterly now, but Colleen never had a life at all. 'So weird,' says Colleen, quite intuitively, when she first visits Elsie's home. 'It's exactly like mine, just the other way round.' Colleen has lived next door to Elsie for some 13 years before the story starts, and it's not quite immediately clear why she should suddenly pop round to offer her services—does Elsie want anything from the shop? But Colleen has been watching the procession of carers that visit Elsie from day to day, and she sees a woman who deserves more than the clock-watching agency nurses who come to give her showers she doesn't need and food that isn't doing her any good at all. There is, as they say, a gap in the market, and Colleen moves fast to fill it, something Elsie appreciates and which helps the once dowdy woman blossom. Compared even to the slow-burn of Williams' last film Bull (2021), the film takes baby steps to reveal itself as a genre film, but the score by Raffertie is ahead of the action at every turn. Nothing will ever really be revealed or explained by the end, but Williams' script sets up so many fascinating ways in which these two very different women — the relatively posh Elsie and the definitely struggling-class Colleen — strike a chord. And key to that is the introduction of Elsie's son John (Jason Watkins). Middle-aged and yet still pathetically upwardly mobile, John is the harbinger here, and his nasty bourgeois values, coming between Elsie and Colleen, turn out to the be the meat in the sandwich. Instead of Chekhov's gun in this scenario we have a dog, and Colleen's inability to control her 'mentalist' crossbreed Sabre does not go well for either of them, leading to a very violent denouement. But Williams' film is not so much concerned with the tension of getting to that and more about the understanding; Andrea Riseborough is just so good at this, bringing the A-game she brought to 2022's To Leslie, but this time with a more jarring child-like innocence, reflected in her pasty, wan complexion. The same goes for Brenda Blethyn, so effortlessly affecting as a wife and mother reduced to becoming a client to the welfare state, a degradation that Colleen just can't begin to tolerate. Williams' films often end with a question mark, and that doesn't always satisfy. With Dragonfly, however, the questions posed are moral and timely, and they will hang around in your head long after as you think about women like Colleen and Elsie and the things in their lives that are missing. It's a mother of a story. Title: DragonflyFestival: Tribeca (International Narrative Competition)Director/screenwriter: Paul Andrew WilliamsCast: Andrea Riseborough, Brenda Blethyn, Jason WatkinsUS Sales: AMP InternationalRunning time: 1 hr 38 mins Best of Deadline Broadway's 2024-2025 Season: All Of Deadline's Reviews Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize Winners Through The Years Deadline Studio At Sundance Film Festival Photo Gallery: Dylan O'Brien, Ayo Edebiri, Jennifer Lopez, Lily Gladstone, Benedict Cumberbatch & More
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Dragonfly' Review: Andrea Riseborough And Brenda Blethyn Give Wings To Paul Andrew Williams' Poignant Neighborhood Drama
Paul Andrew Williams's feature debut was called London to Brighton (2006), but the British director has never been much interested in capital cities. His latest, Dragonfly, is another example of this, being a dark, low-key drama about the ways in which the unnoticed lives of suburban people can make surprising headlines. In a direct way, it's a sister piece to his provocative 2010 home invasion film Cherry Tree Lane, in which—pre-empting Adolescence—a middle-class couple's humdrum live is turned upside down when they are inexplicably attacked by violent teenage rebels without any apparent cause. In reality, though—and despite the blood spilt both onscreen and off—it turns out to be more like the film Williams made in 2012. Called Song for Marion, it starred Terence Stamp as an emotionally shut-down widower who joins a choir to pay homage to his late wife (Vanessa Redgrave). It wasn't a commercial success, and Dragonfly may not be either, but the new film makes better use of that film's ingredients: themes of loneliness, regret, bereavement, self-worth and family. And like Song for Marion, it has quite the cast: two Oscar nominees playing just outside their age range and beyond their comfort zones. More from Deadline Editors Guild Protests Against Nonfiction Producer Story Syndicate At Tribeca Premiere Of OceanGate Submersible Documentary 'Titan' As Tribeca Kicks Off, Toppers Weigh In On Their Growing Festival & Standing Up To Donald Trump Banijay Appoints Factual Drama Chief There's little to no vanity here in the central pairing of Brenda Blethyn, as the elderly widow Elsie, and Andrea Riseborough, as her unemployed neighbor Colleen, and the two very different actors' styles work perfectly together. The film's opening ten minutes sets up the two women's lives with a poignant economy: living in back-to-back bungalows, they lead eerily similar lives, like ghosts. Elsie had a life once and misses it bitterly now, but Colleen never had a life at all. 'So weird,' says Colleen, quite intuitively, when she first visits Elsie's home. 'It's exactly like mine, just the other way round.' Colleen has lived next door to Elsie for some 13 years before the story starts, and it's not quite immediately clear why she should suddenly pop round to offer her services—does Elsie want anything from the shop? But Colleen has been watching the procession of carers that visit Elsie from day to day, and she sees a woman who deserves more than the clock-watching agency nurses who come to give her showers she doesn't need and food that isn't doing her any good at all. There is, as they say, a gap in the market, and Colleen moves fast to fill it, something Elsie appreciates and which helps the once dowdy woman blossom. Compared even to the slow-burn of Williams' last film Bull (2021), the film takes baby steps to reveal itself as a genre film, but the score by Raffertie is ahead of the action at every turn. Nothing will ever really be revealed or explained by the end, but Williams' script sets up so many fascinating ways in which these two very different women — the relatively posh Elsie and the definitely struggling-class Colleen — strike a chord. And key to that is the introduction of Elsie's son John (Jason Watkins). Middle-aged and yet still pathetically upwardly mobile, John is the harbinger here, and his nasty bourgeois values, coming between Elsie and Colleen, turn out to the be the meat in the sandwich. Instead of Chekhov's gun in this scenario we have a dog, and Colleen's inability to control her 'mentalist' crossbreed Sabre does not go well for either of them, leading to a very violent denouement. But Williams' film is not so much concerned with the tension of getting to that and more about the understanding; Andrea Riseborough is just so good at this, bringing the A-game she brought to 2022's To Leslie, but this time with a more jarring child-like innocence, reflected in her pasty, wan complexion. The same goes for Brenda Blethyn, so effortlessly affecting as a wife and mother reduced to becoming a client to the welfare state, a degradation that Colleen just can't begin to tolerate. Williams' films often end with a question mark, and that doesn't always satisfy. With Dragonfly, however, the questions posed are moral and timely, and they will hang around in your head long after as you think about women like Colleen and Elsie and the things in their lives that are missing. It's a mother of a story. Title: DragonflyFestival: Tribeca (International Narrative Competition)Director/screenwriter: Paul Andrew WilliamsCast: Andrea Riseborough, Brenda Blethyn, Jason WatkinsUS Sales: AMP InternationalRunning time: 1 hr 38 mins Best of Deadline Broadway's 2024-2025 Season: All Of Deadline's Reviews Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize Winners Through The Years Deadline Studio At Sundance Film Festival Photo Gallery: Dylan O'Brien, Ayo Edebiri, Jennifer Lopez, Lily Gladstone, Benedict Cumberbatch & More
GMA Network
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- GMA Network
Ruru Madrid says 'Lolong' gave him courage, changed his life as series nears end
As "Lolong: Pangil ng Maynila" nears its end, Ruru Madrid shared that the "Lolong" series gave him courage and changed him not just as an artist but as a human being. In Aubrey Carampel's report in "24 Oras" Friday, Ruru shared that he faced a lot of challenges throughout the making of the series, beginning in its very first season up to "Lolong: Bayani ng Bayan" and now "Lolong: Pangil ng Maynila." "Sa kabila ng lahat ng mga binabato sa 'yo ng mundo, na bigla kang magkakaroon ng injury, biglang magkakaroon ng pandemic, biglang magkakaroon ng kung ano pa mang aksidente, parang 'yun 'yung nagsisilbing lakas sa akin na parang lalong pagbutihin 'yung ginagawa ko," he said. His co-stars Shaira Diaz and Martin Del Rosario, who play the roles of Elsie and Ivan, also learned a lot from the series. "We're lucky talaga na ma-experience 'yun. Dito sa 'Lolong' sinubok kami, nakita natin kung hanggang saan tayo lahat. May mga na-unlock tayo na akala natin 'di natin kayang gawin pero dito nakita natin 'yung range kung hanggang saan pa pala 'yung range namin na, 'Wow thank you 'Lolong,' nailabas mo talaga,'" said Shaira. Martin also acknowledged that the cast and the whole production team gave their "100 percent" to make the show excellent. Meanwhile, Ruru told viewers to watch for the return of the giant crocodile, Dakila, this season, but when and where that would be, he did not reveal. "Very nostalgic kasi parang bumabalik din 'yung Season 1. May mga eksena kaming ginawa na parang kung papaano namin siya shinoot nung Season 1 nung kaming dalawa lang ni Elsie and then ngayon nadagdagan na kami so abangan po natin," he said. As they prepare for the series' grand finale, Ruru added that they agreed to do a scene that he has never seen before in his entire life. "Meron kaming napag-agreehan na isang eksena na parang never ko pang napapanood 'yun sa tanan ng buhay ko, " he said. "Very exciting 'yung 'Lolong.' Siguro magtatapos man siya sa pag-ere sa telebisyon pero habambuhay siyang nasa puso nating lahat so hindi ko masasabi na eto na 'yung huli. Maraming mga possibilities." "Lolong: Pangil ng Maynila" follows Lolong (Ruru) who moves to Manila for a fresh start after losing his powers. There, he encounters action-packed adventures and challenges. The series airs Mondays to Fridays at 8 p.m. after "24 Oras" on GMA Prime. —CDC, GMA Integrated News
ITV News
27-05-2025
- ITV News
Liverpool response shows police have learnt from Southport
While the focus today is rightly on the lives changed by Monday's horrific scenes in Liverpool, there are also signs that Merseyside Police is itself transformed since the last time it dealt with an incident on this scale. Three words indicate a step change in the force's communications: 'white British man'. It took them less than two hours to inform us of the suspect's profile last night. Contrast that with the vacuum of information following the Southport murders last July, and it's clear the police have learnt from the past. I was in Southport a few hours after three little girls - Elsie, Alice and Bebe - were killed and saw for myself how disinformation filled the void left by police communications. Online, outright lies spread about the attacker. Mainly that he was a Muslim asylum seeker who had arrived via a small boat. He wasn't and he hadn't. So determined were the advocates of that disinformation that still to this day some people believe and perpetuate those conspiracies. By the time Merseyside Police released the full information about Axel Rudakubana - including that he was from Britain - it was too late to put the falsehoods back in the box. This is something the inspectorate HMICFRS subsequently criticised police for, recently concluding that 'the police service needs to better appreciate that fast-moving events require it to respond with an accurate counter-narrative". So this time, Merseyside Police acted quickly. I noticed that within minutes last night theories were once again circulating on social media, where irresponsible accounts deliberately stoked a particular narrative. This time, before it could take hold, the Merseyside Police statement landed shortly before 8pm, stating that the suspect was male, white and British. But quickly criticism turned to whether or not the police were too quick to outline the man's profile. In future, will police always be expected to state the ethnicity and nationality of a suspect? What if that information inflames rather than eases tensions, or feeds a false narrative rather than dispelling it? And if police don't routinely release this information, in future cases people will ask why not. There has been great praise today of the police officers - and other emergency services - who responded at the scene of the incident. But the back office staff who decide what information to release must feel they cannot win.
