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Eye-eating parasite puts Alabama long snapper's career in jeopardy

Ryan Parris, a redshirt freshman long snapper for Alabama’s football team, is dealing with a parasitic amoeba attacking his left eye. A week ago, vision in his eye deteriorated to the point of legal blindness. That didn’t stop the walk-on from playing in the Crimson Tide’s spring football game Saturday.

In a tale detailed by Joseph Goodman of AL.com, Parris began feeling irritation in his eye last November. The condition was diagnosed as a rare affliction called Acanthamoeba keratitis, a microscopic organism that is essentially eating his eye.

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Last Monday, the situation looked dire.