Wow, slept 11 hours. That’s 2 night at 10 hours and now 11 hours. You have no idea how unusual that is for me.

I kept using the ice packs today and, overall, the eye was feeling less achy deep in the eye and burned less after using the drops. However, my eye still aches but more like the achiness you get the day after exercising. I think the dilation of my eye is straining the muscles because in the morning it’s like I have to limber the muscles up but my eye stays a little more tired. Maybe that’s why I’ve been sleeping so much.

My eye also feels … full. This is hard to explain. Part of this explanation is based on how my eye looks. It’s very pink under my lower eyelid and on the left side of my eye (beyond the surgical area) and “hilly” … bumpy like an “m”. The right side of my eye is getting really bloodshot.

So, here’s my strange theory based on how my eye looks and feels. Okay, so a large circle was cut out of the white part of my eye but not pulled together with stitches. So, it feels like the edges of the circle are continuing to separate and kind of gathering at the edges of my eye. When I look to the left, where the really pink “m’s” are, it feels like there’s something there. It’s very similar to the feeling you get when you have a hard contact lens slip off your eye and under your eyelid.

Happy Thanksgiving! Okay, that’s my last pleasant thought of the day.

Slept 10 hours last night and I wish I could have stayed asleep. My eye either ached or burned most of the day. It took me most of the day to realize there was actually a pattern. Ironically, my eye would burn really bad within about a half hour of using the medicated drops. The only way I was able to relieve the burning was freezing my eye with an ice pack. That was pretty much the pattern for the day.

In between the burning, my eye ached quite a bit. Definitely not like the first surgery. Why this is almost as bad as Dr. Opth said it would be! I kept popping half a Vicadin but they really didn’t seem to help so I quit taking them.

My patch feels different than last time. I think Dr. Opth put something under the patch to put pressure on the eye. It doesn’t bother me, it just feels different. I popped half a Vicadin to keep any pain at bay … and it seems to be working fairly well.

My appointment for de-patching was at 2pm. It’s really a killer to have the lights from Dr. Opth’s machines on my eye when it’s this light-sensitive. Dr. Opth seems to be pleased with how it looks. He didn’t use stitches this time but I wasn’t sure what my eye would look like. I mean, would I have a gory crater there? ha! Dr. Opth put me back on the 4xday medicated drops, plus using my Refresh drops hourly. He also put some drops in my eye that he said would keep it dilated for a couple of weeks and thinks that will help my vision during that time.

I got some special eye covering at Dr. Opth’s office. They are so strange! You remember the dark “sunglasses” that we got after having our eyes dilated during an appointment? These are like that but without the arms to go over the ears. Instead, these unroll and kind of wrap around your face to your temples. They stay on really well when worn behind my glasses but not so great in front of my glasses. Unfortunately, I look really funny wearing sunglasses behind my regular glasses … kind of like wearing a bra over your shirt!

I went to the restroom after leaving Dr. Opth’s office so I could take a peek at my eye. Wow, much better than I thought. The eyeball looks a little rough, but no big crater. What’s really amazing is that my eyelid is barely swollen. However, I’m prepared with my eye packs at home in anticipation of it swelling. I’m thinking it’s still “flat” because of the pressure of the patch.

EXCITING NEWS!  Dr. Opth called me around 4:30pm to let me know he’d run into the pathologist in the hallway. All the tests came back negative! The melanoma is gone! Yea!

Took another Vicadin before bed.

What a day … Murphy’s law was in full effect! This second surgery was a very different experience from the first one. The good news was that I didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to get to the hospital. My surgery was scheduled for 1pm so I arrived to check in at 11am, as directed. I thought I might be hungry already since I couldn’t eat or drink anything this morning, but it wasn’t that bad.

So I arrive and give them my name … and the receptionist can’t find me on the list for today’s surgeries. Not under my social security number either. I go sit down while she does deep research but she called me back up about 5 minutes later and said she can’t find me. Then she calls the OR scheduler and finds out they actually do have an operating room scheduled for me. She told me that meant they would get me in. I ended up waiting until after 12 for her to gather the various paperwork that should have been prepared and waiting for my arrival.

Eventually a nurse called my name to take me into the interview room. Oh, but wait. Turns out she didn’t have everything she needed either, including the approvals for the drops she was supposed to give me. So another half hour goes by before I finally finish the pre-op interview portion. The nurse then takes me to the next “waiting room.” This is where I change clothes, get to lie in a warm bed, get the pre-anesthesia IV, and wait for an orderly to take me to the pre-op room. Oh, my mistake, that’s what it was like LAST time. This time the regular entry was blocked off due to water damage, the changing rooms were full and I changed in the bathroom, and the bed (yes, there was only one) was already occupied so I got to sit in a chair in the corner with a warm blanket. A little while later a fresh bed replaced the occupied one and I got moved to the bed. By now, it’s after 1pm (my scheduled surgical time).

About 10 minutes later the orderly appears and rolls me down the hall to the pre-op room. There’s construction going on here so some temporary walls had been erected to block off the work area. So I get rolled through the double doors and directly opposite the doors is a little “temp” alcove for my bed. I’m looking to a couple of feet to my right at the double doors to the electrical closet, my head is near the back wall, and the other wall is just a couple of feet to my left. A few minutes later a nurse comes over to put in my IV needle/tube. Instead of using the top of my hand like last time, she’s a fan of the inside elbow. Of course, she had to use my legs as her tabletop since there wasn’t any spare space around my bed. After 2 attempts, she gave up on using my inside elbow. My veins are fairly prominent but she couldn’t get the little flexible needle thing to successfully go into my vein. I suggested she try my hand. Yes, it went in on the first try!

It’s now 1:30pm and I see Dr. Opth pacing around. We’re already a half hour late, which probably would play havoc with his schedule for the rest of the day. He wrote above my eye to signify where/what was being operated on and then brought over another doctor to check out my eye. The other guy mentioned fair hair and eyes but I haven’t found anything that really points to a predominance of this type of melanoma based on hair/eye color. Who knows.

Finally we get into the operating room and, thank goodness, this is one place that hasn’t changed since last time. Still freezing cold. It’s a wonder all the surgeons’ hands don’t get stiff from the cold while operating. The anesthesia was started but this anesthesiologist must have used something different or less of it than the previous one because it didn’t knock me out for more than a few minutes. Just long enough to administer the local anesthesia in the eye.

When I became aware of my surroundings Dr. Opth was taking biopsy samples. I think it was 2-3 above and below the iris. This I think the procedure started to remove the healed-over area from the previous surgery, plus a little more. Then the cryotherapy (freezing). Now, that was a strange thing. I was awake but, visually, everything is pretty much black and white and a total blur. But I could see this thing coming at me that looked like a big circle with a black dot in the middle. Once it got real close to my eye, the other ring appeared vibrate. Kind of a sci-fi moment. Then it was repeated.

During the last surgery I woke up just as Dr. Opth was putting the patch on my eye. This time I got the pleasant experience of his pulling the face guard off me … think pulling duct tape off your face. Okay, maybe not quite the same thing but definitely wince-worthy. Dr. Opth put my patch on with a whole lot of tape. Then we were finished.

I must of spaced for a few moments because I suddenly realized I was quite nauseous. At the same time, Dr. Opth asked me if I was going to be sick. I got it under control and they moved me to a completely new room. I was dizzy and had broken out in a sweat … a sure sign that I’ll pass out if I try to get up. Since my ride had arrived around 2:15pm, as scheduled, she had been waiting around for quite awhile because it was now nearly 3pm. They brought her into the room while we waited until I felt like I could sit/stand up without passing out. They took my blood pressure and, no surprise, it was a little low (90/70). After about 15 minutes I was able to get up and dress so we could leave.

This surgery was more aggressive than the last one but I think it was the combination of the surgery and no food since 10pm the night before that caused the nausea and dizziness. I got home about 3:30pm and ate and was fine after that.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful but, this time, I took a Vicadin prior to going to bed so I wouldn’t wake up in pain in the middle of the night.

I got my ride confirmed yesterday, so I’m set. My thanks to everyone who inquired!

My weekend was spent preparing for my surgery tomorrow. This entailed stocking up on supplies and trying to get as much work done as possible. Since I know it will be difficult for me to drive (mostly because of the light sensitivity), I wanted to make sure it wasn’t necessary.

I also took “control” pictures of my eye that I’ll post later. These pics are for “pre-op” purposes so you’ll be better able to see the differences when I take “post-op” pics.

So, that’s twice this week that I’ve slept for a solid 10 hours (Wed and last night). I’ll have you know that this was completely unheard of prior to my eye surgery. In the past, I had to work hard to even sleep for 9 hours.

Of course I had been noticing since the surgery that I required more sleep. I figured it was because my eye was still recovering. However, my eye “looks” fairly good right now so it’s harder to use my eye as an excuse but it seems to be the reason for the extra sleep.

This past week my schedule resulted in a couple of nights with only 6.5-7 hours of sleep. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem because it wasn’t even two nights in a row. But I caught 10 hours of sleep after that first short night and woke up slightly dizzy. I thought it might have been simply because I overslept.

Then I had another short night and woke up slightly dizzy again. Historically, when I wake up dizzy I’ve had eyestrain. I used to get that a lot when I was in school so I know the symptoms. Last night I was tired early so went to bed instead of fighting it and ended up sleeping those 10 hours! Wow!

Woke up feeling good but who has the time for 10 hours of sleep every night?! Okay, so I know one person who used to always sleep that long (and you know who you are!) but that’s hard on the schedule. Plus I’ve discovered I only can sleep that long if I go to bed abnormally early (for me) … otherwise my cat, Skeeter, wakes me up and I can’t sleep late in the morning.

So, I’m finally getting past the multiple doctor appointments each week and now I seem to need oodles of sleep. Hard to get any work done this way!

Received an email this morning from Dr. Onc … my MRI is normal! Yea!

This afternoon I had my combination follow-up and pre-op appointment with Dr. Opth. I received the paperwork I need to take with me to the hospital and we talked about what he would do during this next surgery.

After he checked out my eye with his machines, he called in his associate to also take a look. They both talked about how clear the eye looks and that there’s no sign of any melanoma. Unfortunately, we all know the pathology results disagree. So it seems the question of the day is “what do you cut out when there’s no visible signs?” Well, that’s for Dr. Opth to determine.

I learned something new today … or rather, something was clarified. I thought the other sample Dr. Opth had taken during the last surgery was from the white toward the inside of my eye (toward my nose) and that’s what had also come back with pre-cancerous cells. However, it turns out the 2nd sample was also on the outside portion of my eye. Apparently the “skin” is too thin on the inside to take a sample.

Dr. Opth did a really good demonstration of the last surgery versus what he’s going to do this time. If you’d like to play along, grab a kleenex. Now fold the kleenex in half and lay it down on a hard surface, like a table. The kleenex represents the “tissue” layer of the eyeball, which is fairly thin and soft. The table represents the sclera, or base, which is a hard layer of the eyeball.

During the first surgery, he cut out a piece of the tissue and then did cryotherapy (freezing) around the cut edges of the tissue. The biopsy results show that the cancerous cells went right to the edge of the cut out tissue plus were also seen below on the sclera (aka table). During this next surgery, Dr. Opth will cut out more tissue and then freeze the remaining edges PLUS the sclera (which he didn’t do last time). It’s this extra freezing of the sclera that is going to be more problematic during recovery. He says my eye will bleed more (since I didn’t see it bleeding, I’m assuming that means during surgery) and that my eye will hurt quite a bit more since freezing the sclera is considered extreme. I know he’s following the recommendation of the specialist at Wills Eye.

I asked Dr. Opth if there was any way to get “material” for a biopsy without surgery and he told me no. As I suspected, but I had to ask. I was hoping simply because we won’t know for sure if all the pre-cancerous cells are gone after this surgery. It would take another surgery to get another biopsy to know. Sigh.

I mentioned the fact that I created this blog and it was the first big smile I’ve gotten out of him. So the blog’s a success even if no one ever reads it! ha! But he said that my type of melanoma is so rare that it’s unlikely there’s a support group or anything to help someone, so it may be helpful. Who knows?

I went in for my MRI this morning. The instructions were only to wear clothing without metal, if possible. I brought along a pair of metal-free pants just in case they didn’t want me to wear my jeans. I wasn’t sure since they were only scanning my head.

When I got to the hospital where the scan was being done, I ended up following a trail of MRI signs for about a mile. Lots of detour due to construction going on. The receptionist in the MRI section didn’t have a sense of humor about my comment that the appointment should have come with a treasure map considering how hard it was to find it. I’m serious though! The only way I found the place was with the help of another patient and two construction guys continuing to point out the way.

So after filling out the usual paperwork, I was taken back to change my pants and lock up my belongings. Since they let me keep my bra on and only required me to move the straps down my arms, I have to question the need for the metal-free pants! Oh well.

This was a similar setup to the other scans with the sliding table I had to lay on. This one came with headphones and my choice of music. However their system was having problems so they were only getting elevator music and even that died within a couple of minutes. They had me put on the headphones (whether I wanted them or not) because then they lift up some kind of clamping system against the headphones to keep my head in place. A thing was put over my face and clamped to the pieces holding my head still. It’s fairly open with a couple of bars horizontally and at least one vertical one. It also has a little mirror so I could see the people talking to me.

Once I was all locked in, the table slid into a white “tunnel” that seemed to only be a couple of feet in diameter. That explained the need for the rubber ball they put in my right hand that they said to press if I really, really needed to get out. One quick look inside the all-white tunnel made me realize that even a person who isn’t particularly claustrophobic could get antsy inside here! Since there really isn’t anything to see except the walls of the tunnel, keeping my eyes closed wasn’t hard.

They talked to me through the headphones. I assume a microphone was in that grid over my face since they could hear me respond. They must have done 8-10 scans. They would let me know how long each one would be just before they started it; a couple were 10 seconds, but most were 1.5 to 3 minutes long. The machine made a loud and different noise for each scan.

Eventually they rolled me back out of the tunnel so they could inject me with a contrast before finishing the scans. So into the tunnel I went again and they did 4 more scans before I was done. After that I changed my pants back to my jeans and left. It was almost exactly 2 hours from when I had arrived.

As it turned out, someone pointed me to a stairway that led to the parking lot right where my car was parked so I didn’t have to walk that long path inside the hospital again.

When I got home I emailed Dr. Onc to let him know the MRI was completed so he could get the results.

Over the weekend I received a letter stating that my mammogram was negative … which means no problems. Then today I received an email from Dr. Onc that my CT and PET CT scans also came back normal. Great news! I had already heard a couple of weeks ago that my pap was also normal. Tomorrow I have my MRI, so the tests are finally winding down.

Good news, bad news. I just found out that my friend who gave me a ride after my last surgery won’t be available when I have my next surgery. It’s great that she’s able to extend her vacation, which is why she won’t be available. It just means I’ll need a back-up plan but I still have a couple of weeks for that.