Family travelling across the world before their 3 children go blind

A Canadian couple Edith Lemay and Sebastian Pelletier have embarked on a trip across the world in a bid to envision their children with as many beautiful scenery memories as possible after three of their children were diagnosed with Retinitis pigmentosa.

Their eldest daughter Mia was diagnosed with Retinitis pigmentosa after it emerged she was struggling to see in the evenings in 2018.

As per the doctors, the condition could leave her blind in her 30s. A year later, her younger siblings Colin and Laurent were diagnosed with the same disease. Only their second-born son, Leo is free from the disease.

Retinitis Pigmentosa is a group of rare eye diseases that affect the retina and makes cells in the retina break down slowly overtime, causing vision loss. It's a genetic disease that one is born with and the symptoms according to medical research starts in childhood stages and most of it's victims lose their sight. The condition currently has no cure.

Although heartbroken, the parents resolved to show the beauty across the world to their children rather than mourn over no cure chose to live in the moment.

You don't have to believe that it's true, it was really hard. As a parent you have tis vision of what your children's lives are going to be like and suddenly you have to rethink all of that.

When Mia's specialist recommended to Edith on filling her with visual memory from books, she thought otherwise.

"She told me, ‘you can look at books and show them what an elephant or a giraffe looks like," she recalled.

“I thought to myself, ‘We're going to take them to see elephants and giraffes in real life. And we're going to do more than that. We're going to show them our beautiful world... before it's too late."

They had previously planned to commence their journey in July 2020 with Russia and China at the top of their list but due to pandemic and travel restrictions set to contain the virus they were forced to postpone their trip.The family is currently six months into their year long journey and have so far travelled to Namibia, Zanzibar, Tanzania, Turkey, Mongolia and Indonesia.

The couple has been homeschooling their children and is planning to return home to Quebec next year in March.