Today was my first public outing since the surgery. I had lunch with a business associate. I have to admit to being very self-conscious because my eyelid is still so swollen and I can’t wear eye make-up. Gee, I don’t even go out without eye make-up when my eyelid isn’t swollen! This isn’t the first time I’ve envied brunettes for having visible eyelashes!

Had my follow-up appointment with Dr. Opth today. He got the pathology report from the biopsy. Definitely melanoma. Rats. I didn’t realize melanoma is always malignant. I guess that makes sense because any time I’ve heard of someone having skin melanoma, they always talk about removing it.

Dr. Opth explained that the biopsy results showed no clear margins. This means that the cancer cells went right to the edge of the whole section he cut out. When he did the surgery, he removed the bump plus an area around it. The point is to try to get it all plus show that healthy cells were showing up on the edges of what was removed. Since my biopsy showed no clear margins, Dr. Opth said there was a good chance I’d have to have another surgery to try to get it all.

Before making a decision about surgery, Dr. Opth wants to speak with the pathologist to better understand the biopsy results. He said he’d like to know if the cancerous cells were only at the edges or if they were also underneath what he had cut out (meaning it went deeper than expected). However, the pathologist was out of the office that week so he needed to wait to make any decisions.

I asked him about my swollen eyelid since it was causing so many problems in trying to get back to work. He suggested using ice packs to help reduce the swelling. He checked out my eye again with the machines and felt pleased with the way it looks. I don’t have to use the patch anymore when I sleep.

I went home and started using the ice pack.

Okay, my eyelid is still really big and I’m not able to get back to work like I expected. Between the light bothering my eye and the eyelid affecting my vision (I think because the swelling puts pressure on the eye), this is a pain in the neck (and lower).

Patience, patience.

I find I’m needing to sleep a lot … averaging at least 9 hours a night. Even then it takes about an hour in the morning before that medicated gel gets out of my eye.

Okay, so maybe I spoke too soon about that whole “no pain” situation. I woke up about midnight with my eye really hurting. What was strange is that, although the eye hurt, most of the pain seemed to come from the fact that my eye was tearing up and it was the tears making my eye burn, which caused more tears. Vicious circle!

I actually laid in bed for quite some time trying to relax so my eye would quit tearing. In my sleepy state I believed if it quit tearing up, I could handle the pain. Evenutally I realized it wasn’t going to stop without help so I finally got up and took a Vicadin. Slept really well after that and woke up after about 9 1/2 hours sleep.

The big pain was gone but it still hurt. I decided to take half a Vicadin to dim the pain but not knock me out. That worked and I did pretty well all day. It was interesting taking a shower and washing my face around the patch that took up half my face but Dr. Opth had told me it wasn’t a problem if it got a little wet. I managed and it didn’t even loosen the tape.

My follow-up appointment with Dr. Opth was at 3:30 so my friend picked me up to take me over there. He removed the patch and I was assaulted with pain from the light. Ouch! Wasn’t expecting to be so light sensitive. It didn’t help when he used his machines to check out my eye due to the light that aims at the eye.

I mentioned that I didn’t have any pain until last night and he said that the anesthesia lasted longer than he expected. Bummer, I guess that deflates my illusions of having a high pain threshold! ha! Since I already had my prescriptions, I was now told to use the medicated drops 4 times a day and he gave me use some medicated gel to use in my eye at night and to use the patch over my eye when I sleep to protect it.

Since the melanoma has been confirmed, Dr. Opth says it’s time to schedule a full physical and other tests to make sure I’m otherwise healthy. Admittedly, I’ve only had one physical in the last 11 years … it’s that usually being healthy thing again! However, I agreed to make an appointment.

It wasn’t until I got to my car that I got the opportunity to look at my eye. Wow! Really, really swollen eyelid! Wasn’t expecting that either. My eye teared up all the way home even with my sunglasses.

Once I got home I was able to take a better look at my eye. You can actually see the 2 stitches in my eyeball and that side of the eye is mottled-looking from the follow-up treatments. I found I was letting my left eye close more often than I kept it open. My vision was so bad with that eye that it was making it hard to look at anything.

I decided to take a Vicadin before bed to avoid that midnight pain.

I’m not a morning person … never have been, never will be. So you can guess how excited I was to have to get up at 4am so I could be at the hospital at 5:15am. They told me not to expect the doors directly into the special eye surgery place to be open that early so I should park near it and then walk over to the hospital. The hospital staff would admit me and then send me to the eye surgery place.

When I got to the hospital and told them I had the eye surgery scheduled, they pointed me down the hall and said take a left to the end. Guess where I ended up. Yeah, the eye surgery place! And, yes, staff was there ready to admit me.

They ran me through a questionnaire and put a couple of different eye drops in my eye to start deadening the feeling in it. Then they took me to the pre-op area where they had lockers and I removed my clothing and put on the gown, socks, and hair cover-up. I was then put in a bed and covered with warm blankets … they keep these surgical areas really cold.

A nurse asked me if I wanted lidocaine or just the IV needle in the back on my hand. Since I didn’t know the difference, she used the lidocaine. It’s supposed to numb out the area so you don’t feel the IV needle as much. The lidocaine created a short-lived sharp pain but I didn’t particularly feel it when she inserted the IV needle so it must work. Then I waited. A couple of people came to check on me occasionally, but mostly I waited until it was time to head out.

A guy came to wheel my bed down the hall to another waiting area. This was a much larger multi-bed area where the nursing staff was moving around their centralized area. I guess this was the true pre-op area. We were waiting for Dr. Opth to show up. Meanwhile they put this strange blanket on me that was plastic-like with internal pockets. They hooked it up to a machine that filled the pockets with warm air. Then they covered that up with more warm blankets. Did I mention that they keep these rooms cold?

Dr. Opth was late. However, it seemed the hospital had changed it’s rules and he was expected to show up in that pre-op area to “mark” me. Apparently, the old rule was that he could do it in the operating room and that’s why he hadn’t shown up in the pre-op area. When he appeared, he used a Sharpie pen to write something above the left eye. Plus they asked me what I was there for. This is their way of making sure surgeons are operating on the correct thing, I guess. He even had to include his initials in what he wrote.

Finally my bed is wheeled down a long hallway to the operating room. It’s even colder in here. Now all these heated blankets make sense! Once the anesthesia began, I was out cold (no pun intended!). When I woke up I could hear everything but I could only see dim shapes. Dr. Opth was just finishing, I think, because he told me to close my eyes and I could tell he was putting a patch over my eye.

They wheeled me back to the original room and let me get up and change back into my clothes. It felt really strange because I was expecting to feel lightheaded or something but I didn’t. I’ve never had a local before so I didn’t really have an understanding of what I would feel like.

A friend picked me up and dropped me off at home. During my pre-op appointment I had been given a list of things not to do after surgery. I wasn’t supposed to try to read but I could watch television. Once I got home I realized the irony of that. I couldn’t get my glasses on over this patch. It’s a big oval shape that has a curve to it so it doesn’t touch my eye at all. Then, of course, there’s a bunch of tape keeping it on my eye. Bottom line, the only way I could use my glasses was to turn them around and hold them backwards to my right eye. Not a great solution. I ended up reading. Since I’m nearsighted, it actually worked quite well. My right eye would get tired since it was working extra hard, but that was it.

The really good news is that my eye hasn’t hurt at all. Other than the awkward patch, everything is good. Ended up going to bed nearly two hours earlier than usual … but don’t forget that early morning!

Got my prescriptions filled at WalMart for only $4! I ended up with this weird mindset today and found myself stocking up on provisions like I was preparing for an Alaskan winter. Prepping for the unexpected, I guess.

I met with Dr. Opth today for my pre-op appointment. This was one of those times when I’m glad I have a sense of humor because, otherwise, it could have been really depressing!

The appointment started, of course, with him staring at my eyes through his machines. Then he went into what I should expect from the surgery. He said I would be given a local anesthesia around the eye area but, yes, I would be knocked out briefly so I wouldn’t feel the needle doing the local (thank goodness!). He then explained how he would “cut and scrape” the bump off my eye. He planned to take some of the area all around the bump to ensure he got it all.

Since he’s so sure it’s melanoma, he wants to do the follow-up procedures while I’m in surgery. I asked if we shouldn’t wait for the biopsy results (because I’m still optimistically thinking it’s just a result of dry eyes). He said the follow-up would require me to come back into surgery. I saw extra dollars signs explode before my eyes and agreed that it would be a good idea to do it while I was already there.

The follow-up entails cryo-wherever, which means they do something to freeze off an extra layer or two of cells. Then he would follow up with a pure alcohol wash or rub (missed which it was because my brain was really still back at the cut and scrape comment).

Now, here’s my favorite part. He told me my eye would really, really hurt the day of surgery. He stared at me for a little while and then said, “Let me give you a prescription for Vicadin.” (You really have to hear his tone of voice as he says all these things to understand why it seemed funny to me.) Anyhow, he then told me my eye would feel like it had sand or rocks in it for a couple of weeks and would take some time before it was completely better.

I left with my Vicadin prescription and a presciption for some antibiotic gel that I’d use in my eye at nights after the surgery.

Okay, at this point, my primary concern is about money. Since I’m self-employed it’s fairly obvious that if I can’t work, I’m not making money. Combine that with my $5,000 deductible and you can see where my thoughts are running! Assuming the biopsy comes back as not being melanoma though, at least this will be the end of it and hopefully I won’t have hit my full deductible yet.