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Despite watching her now two-year-old son lose an eye to cancer and facing mounting medical bills, Natalee Whyte-Wilson is clinging to hope and begging other parents not to miss what she didn't know to look for.

"Mi want people fi know bout retinoblastoma because mi never know. Mi want other mothers fi check dem baby eyes early maybe dem can detect if something wrong," she said. Retinoblastoma is a rare type of cancer that starts in the retina, and primarily affects children.

Baby Nathaniel has faced surgery, chemotherapy and endless hospital visits before even learning to speak properly. The nightmare began when he was only eight months old.

"Mi notice that there was a little glare in the centre of his left eye. At first it looked pale pink. Mi auntie noticed it as well and we were just joking that, you know, maybe him have pretty eyes," she said.

"The private doctor said maybe it's nothing because babies tend to born with glow at times so maybe it's nothing to worry about." But as time passed, the glow remained and her worry grew.

"After him get him vaccine, him did grumpy for the entire time because he had pain and fever. But I noticed him only rubbing the left eye and mi seh 'No man, why him nah rub the two eyes?'"

Determined, Whyte-Wilson took Nathaniel to the Mandeville Hospital's eye clinic. After an ultrasound, she learnt of the retinoblastoma.

"Mi go home and google it to understand and I had a gut feeling to the point where mi seh to mi auntie, the next time mi go the doctor I know dem nah go have anything good to tell mi." Cancer was later confirmed at the Bustamante Hospital for Children. Further shattering her world was the notification that Nathaniel's left eye had to be removed.

"I was overwhelmed because I wondered what I did not do or see that could have prevented it," she lamented. Last December, doctors removed Nathaniel's left eye.

"Dem bandaged up the left eye, the entire head because they didn't want him to scratch it. When he opened his other eye, he couldn't see anything because the lid was forced shut. So that made him miserable. He cried the entire time and I was helpless because it was all to make him better," said Whyte-Wilson.

But even through his pain, Nathaniel showed strength.

"Two times him have to console mi, hug mi up, say 'Mommy, hush.' And him a the one that is sick. Although he doesn't understand, that helps me to have faith," the mother said.

After the surgery, doctors delivered more heartbreaking news that the cancer had reached the optic nerve, so Nathaniel had to start chemotherapy. He now goes every 21 days, and also receives cryotherapy - a treatment in which extreme cold is applied to freeze and destroy abnormal tissue - on the right eye, which has two small tumours.

Most of Nathaniel's treatment at Bustamante is free. But for MRIs and cryotherapy at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), Whyte-Wilson has to pay upfront.

"Every time mi go UHWI fi cryotherapy, dem ask mi fi pay 20 per cent upfront. Right now mi owe over $100,000," she lamented. A $500,000 donation from the charity of Jamaica Constabulary Force Sergeant Selvin Smith was a big help.

"Grateful is an understatement, Sergeant Smith really dedicated himself to help us. It really got things started but based on the treatment, it's just a drop in the bucket. The prolonging of the treatment, it's gonna take more than that," said Whyte-Wilson.

"If the cancer advances, Nathaniel may need treatment overseas, something I really can't afford but I will find a way. I have to find a way."

Through everything, the mother said she still trusts God.

"Mi know it ago tek more than money. Mi just hope when I go back, the doctors tell mi, 'Mommy, Nathaniel out of the red now, no more treatment.' But until dat day, mi just haffi trust God."