Edinburg North WR Partida fights off rare disease

EDINBURG — Like many parents of young football players, Armando Partida will be more than a little relieved when his son’s gridiron career ends.

Partida’s concern, however, is not just anxiety about the prospect of some random injury.

His son, Andrew, is a senior wide receiver for the Cougars of Edinburg North High School. The team is set to play host Friday to Sharyland High School in a Class 5A game.

Andrew, 17, is one of the Cougars’ most important players, having caught 24 passes for 353 yards and five touchdowns — including seven catches for 139 yards and four TDs during a win over Rio Grande City High School in the season’s first week.

Yet it sounds like Armando Partida has had more than enough of watching his son play and risk his chances to live a normal life.

Andrew was 10 years old when he was diagnosed with Terrien’s marginal degeneration, a rare eye disease that occurs in 1 out of 500,000 people. Most people who get the disease are only affected in the right eye. Andrew has it in both. The disease is neither hereditary or contagious.

The disorder makes him sensitive to light and more susceptible to injury.

In fact, if Andrew’s eyes suffer a strong enough poke he could go blind, a thought Armando can’t shake when he watches his son play. Though pokes to the eyes are rare, especially considering the visor he wears, the risk is still there.

“Sometimes I tell (Edinburg North coach Roy) Garza, ‘Don’t throw the ball too much to him. I don’t want him to get hurt. Just let him be. Throw him one, two, three passes and that’s it.’” Armando Partida said. “‘Sit him down and let me enjoy the game.’ I tell him like that.”

Andrew’s parents wanted him to have as normal of a life as possible — and that includes playing football and sports in general, although he did give up basketball because of the disease.

None of those friends, they figured, had to wear dark sunglasses around school because their eyes were sensitive to light — eventually Nike developed contact lenses to help him see better.

And none of his friends felt compelled in junior high, after a run-in with a teacher who wouldn’t let him leave class to get treatment, to write an open letter describing what it’s like to have TMD.

And none of them have to go home after school and sit in the dark for a couple hours just to let their eyes recover from a day in halls and classrooms illuminated with fluorescent lights.

But perhaps most cruelly, none of his friends have to worry that one injury could knock out their vision for good.

“When I come out here and play football, I leave everything out on the field,” Andrew said. “I just dedicate my life to this sport.”

Coach Garza said he shares the concern and tries to accommodate the senior as much as he can.

“It’s a tough sell for a young kid to have that over (your head), to have something degenerative that’s going to continue,” Garza said. “That’s a hard sell. You don’t see it in his demeanor.”

Not everyone thinks it’s a good idea to let him play, however — some of his doctors recommended against contact sports.

“So far he’s doing well,” said Dr. Imtiaz Mehkri, the ophthalmologist who diagnosed Andrew and sees him about every six months. “As long as he has protective gear that would prevent injury to the eye, he’ll be OK. But his eyes don’t have the ability of a normal person’s eyes to withstand an impact.”

Andrew also lines up on the right side of the Cougar offense — his vision is slightly better in his left eye.

And passes to him are rarely high-arcing tosses that might force him to look into the lights. Instead, they’re line-drive throws. And he has to be even more aware of defensive players when he’s about to catch a pass because his peripheral vision is also lacking.

“I’m playing and that’s a risk,” Andrew said. “In a way, I’m cautious about playing football. Real cautious.”

Still, all of that might not matter if he suffers an injury to his eyes or they become infected again. When he was first diagnosed at age 10, Andrew’s eyes were severely infected, a condition that could have led to him losing his eyes if they hadn’t been treated.

Knowing that makes it impossible for Armando Partida to get the same pleasure watching his son play as many other parents get from seeing their children compete on the gridiron. How could he just sit back and enjoy the game, knowing that one hit could alter the rest of his son’s life?

The relief will come when the season ends for the Cougars.

“I wish it would have happened last week but unfortunately it didn’t,” Armando said.

____

Brian Sandalow covers high school sports for Valley Freedom Newspapers. You can reach him at (956) 683-4436 or via e-mail at bsandalow@themonitor.com.