I is for Iris

I feel like lately people have been noticing my eyes a lot more than usual. I generally get comments on them pretty often, but for the past few weeks I feel like someone notices them every few days. The reason? I have genetic heterochromia iridium, which means my irises are completely different colors. One is blue, and the other is mostly green (but about a quarter of it’s brown). WEIRD, I know.

My parents both have blue eyes, and according to what I remember from high school anatomy, that combination of recessive genes means they can only have blue-eyed children. I was born with blue eyes (most babies are, their eyes change color after about six months depending on the amount of melanin they have), but only one of them stayed that way.

Having different colored eyes is classified as “very rare” by the National Institutes of Health; it affects only one in a million people, or less than 200,000 in the U.S. population. On one hand I feel pretty unique, on the other, I am really sick of being compared to peoples’ pets. I can’t tell you how often I hear, “Oh, my dog has the exact same thing!”

Whatever… I am one in a million!