Today is September 1st and I can't believe it, time feels like it has disappeared in a fog somewhere. I wonder if I will ever eventually get those days back or maybe I'm just better off not remembering them at all. July and August were a whirlwind for me because I found out in early July that I had eye cancer. According to my incredible and amazing ocular oncologist Dr. Michael Seider, we were going to set a fast pace for my treatment. I was immediately set up with a massive amount of tests which included blood panels, x-rays, mammogram, C/T scan and MRI's. All of these tests were all done to check to see if cancer had spread from my eye to anywhere else in my body. I remember when I was waiting for the test results, I was so scared I could barely even breathe. I had no idea what the results would be. I remember one morning while I was waiting I was praying so hard and thinking please God don't let it be anywhere else in my body. I just don't think I could handle that, I'm begging you. I will do anything I will spend the rest of my life helping others if only you let me live.
Awaiting my radiation plague surgery, awful and desperate feelings kept me away from everyone and everything that I love. I holed up in my room and sat in the dark for days. I felt like the entire world had just collapsed on me. Dr. Seider contacted me as soon as he received the results from the tests and told me that the cancer had not spread anywhere else. I thought I would fall down and cry I was so relieved. I think I remember screaming out loud OMG! Although I will still need to be checked every 6 months to be sure, I was feeling a lot better about everything.
I also had to meet with my radiologist to get ready for my brachytherapy treatment and that in itself was an extremely stressful meeting. He told me that I would have to be sequestered for an entire week and no one was going to be able to get near me because I was going to have a gold plaque with 21 seeds of radiation sewn on to the back of my eye. Sounds a little fancy and neat don't you think?
Well, all in all, the brachytherapy was definitely a very painful experience. I was told right before the insertion of the plaque that physicists created my plaque just for me and that they surveyed the C/T scans and made it fit just the right size of the tumor and added lots of radiation power. Wow! Was all I could say to my doctor when he told me that.
Today I'm still dealing with a lot of residual pain and still quite a bit of swelling. My eye looks a lot like one that a zombie might be rambling around with on the Walking Dead, but I can deal with that since it keeps getting better little by little. I'm scheduled to go back to work in a week and I'm looking forward to it.
I wonder a lot about what kinds of comments I will get when people see my eye? With all of the surgical treatment that I went through, it's too bad they couldn't have given me some kind of superpowers like x-ray vision or the ability to shoot laser beams out of my eye. I know that is silly, but it's just my way of trying to be humorous and deal with all of my pain.
I have also filled a lot of my time lately trying out many different plant-based recipes. I have found an excellent e-cookbook on Amazon Kindle called The Super Easy Vegan Slow-Cooker Cookbook. I highly recommend this book and can say that some of my favorites I've made so far are the Split-Pea Soup and the Lentil Chili. I also just started a Pinterest board called It's Easy Being Vegan where I am going to pin my favorite plant-based recipes. Being vegan helps me to feel better about life and going forward and how I'm going to take better care of myself and my family.
Until next time,
KB
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