Contemplating Today

What can I say?  Today was an ok day.  I am moving along fairly well as can be expected.  I am recovering from three eye surgeries, 18 rounds of chemo injected in my eye, and unfortunately the loss of my right eye. The first was radiation plaque that was sewn to the back of my eye for one week straight which wasn't too bad if you don't mind looking like you have a Frankenstein eyeball. The second was the removal of the plaque and let me tell you, by this point I was angrier than a hornet. I just wanted to get that thing that felt like a hot pop rock out of my eye. This was probably the most painful experience I've ever had and I have had two children, one natural and one C-section and this out ranked both by far.

Ok, so maybe I should fill you in a little bit why I had to go through all of that. Three years ago I was told by my eye doctor that I had a tumor on my right eye and that it was cancerous. He used the word Melanoma to be exact. There's something about that word that brings to mind blackness and death, it's a very ominous and destructive word you never want to hear. I can't even described to you the shock and dismay that I went through my entire body when he told me the news. It was like all of the air was sucked out of the room and my world just stopped. I was looking at his face and his mouth was moving and I swear I couldn't barely hear anything he was saying after I heard the word Melanoma. My doctor told me that I had Uveal Melanoma and it is fairly uncommon only about 5% of people are diagnosed with it in the world.  That's about 2,500 people per year.

I had the weirdest most surreal feeling and then I heard my doctor say "in order to save your life and save your eye we will either have to remove the eye or you can undergo a procedure call brachytherapy, which involves placing a radioactive plaque on the tumor for one week." All I can say is I think I stopped breathing at that moment in time.  Remove my eye? There was no way that I was going to do that. Strangely enough, I don't think that I cried in that office, I think I was too devastated to cry. 

Luckily my husband and mom were there in the room to support me. At that moment the doctor, my mom and husband and I all became a team. This fateful day changed my life forever and as I sit here and write this I can tell you that I had to make a decision to either live or lose my eye. 

I opted to try and save my eye. I've been asking this question a lot to my family and I ask you too, which option do you think that you would do?

 

The good news is that about two weeks before I found out about my eye I had decided to start eating only plant based foods.  I'm not even sure why I decided to do this major overhaul in my life, but I can tell you that today I am so very grateful that something popped into my head and told me that it was time for me to start on a plant-based diet. I also have to tell you that I have been too scared to do much more research on this because I was fearful of finding out more horrible news.  I just listen to my doctor and he continues to deliver me good news.

I think that's about enough for today, but I will be back very soon.