Lux et umbra vicissum…

Short version: my cancer is back, but in my eye

Back in December, I got a headache that lasted for the whole month, and with it there was a disturbance in the vision of my left eye.  I thought it was an ocular migraine because I’ve had them before, so I just waited for it to go away.  I let it go until late January, when I finally called my ophthalmologist.

You know, I don’t think it’s ever a good thing when your doctor looks at something, gets a worried look on their face, and says, “Oh… I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.”  I was immediately referred to a specialist in my town.  I saw him twice, the first time on a Saturday because they wanted to get me in quickly, the second time the following Tuesday so they could do more tests.  Guess what!  The specialist wasn’t sure what it was either; he just called it a “retinal lesion”.  So he referred me to another more specialized specialist (I just called him the specialist specialist).

It always takes a bit to get in to see a specialist specialist, of course, so my original appointment was a month after the first specialist’s.  When I called to let them know that the thing was noticeably growing every day, they got my appointment moved up by two weeks, so that was cool.

The appointment was today.  After hours of tests, the specialist specialist came in to see me and showed us how the lesion we were seeing was the largest one, but there were others.  Then he showed us the fluid under the biggest lesion.  He also pointed out the little things that were cancer cells.

Technically, they would need to do a biopsy for a definitive diagnosis, but eye biopsies aren’t something they like to do if they don’t have to.  Everything he was seeing pointed to cancer – not eye cancer, mind you, but metastasized cancer.  There’s a good chance it’s leftover cells from my breast cancer 6 years ago, but we can’t be sure without a full body scan.  I get to visit my oncologist again!  Yay!

I’ll be calling the oncologist on Monday.  If no other cancer is found, I’ll need radiation treatment to my left eye.  That should take care of the cancer there.  I’m just really hoping he doesn’t want to put me back on any of the cancer meds.  Between having to change my psych meds and all of the other side effects, it was NOT fun.

So here’s to doctors who find this stuff so we can deal with it appropriately.  God was watching out for me.  If those cancer cells had landed somewhere else, even somewhere else in my eye, they probably wouldn’t have been noticed this soon.  We’ll have to see where the journey takes us this time.