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.

It turns out the visante OCT scan is more like taking digital pictures of the eyeball but it also shows some depth. Quite painless and quick. We walked back to Dr. Opth’s office in the building next door with printouts of the scans.

The point of this was to try to determine if the bump went below the surface … not a good thing. Fortunately, it appeared to be just a surface bump. However, Dr. Opth is still fairly sure it’s melanoma. He’s so sure that he printed out an article about conjunctival melanoma from Wills Eye in Philadelphia, apparently the nation’s specialists in eye cancers. In addition, he contacted them and said their recommendation is surgery, too.

Dr. Opth tells me he wants to do the surgery soon … in the next couple of weeks. He also wants to perform the normal follow-up procedures during the surgery since he has such a strong belief in the fact that it’s melanoma. This entails cryotherapy (freezing) and a pure alcohol wash or rub or something. It was getting hard to follow everything at this point!

I have to admit that my finances are taking up more of my thoughts than the melanoma at this point. Sounds weird but you have to know that I’ve only had maybe one cold in the last ten years. My good health and optimistic outlook resulted in a health insurance policy with a $5,000 deductible. Yeah, $5,000! Plus, when you factor in that I’m self-employed and being unable to work means no income, it’s definitely going to leap to the forefront of my thoughts.

Dr. Opth’s assistant and I were working on scheduling the surgery. Between my work schedule and the availability of surgical facilities, we were looking at about 3 weeks out. However, Dr. Opth overhears this and says no, he wants this done within 2 weeks. Okay, fine. My surgery is scheduled for 7:15am on 10/6/08.

Finally got into the opthamologist’s office. We’ll call him “Dr. Opth.”

He puts about 4 different drops in my eyes, looks at them through all those machines, and then calls his partner in to take a look. Then he goes back to staring at my eyes through the machines. This is a guy who doesn’t like to say anything until HE’S ready.

He’s asking a few questions but when he gets to “is there a history of rare cancers in your family” I know this isn’t going to turn out to be just a good ol’ dry eye problem.

When he finally finishes checking out my eyes, he tells me that there are a couple of possibilities. However, Dr. Opth feels fairly strongly that my “bump” is melanoma. He sees a little brown spot in the bump that’s like a small freckle and that’s common with melanoma. However, we can’t be sure what it is until we do a biopsy, which requires surgical removal of the bump.

Frankly, I got lucky. It seems that Dr. Opth has actually had a couple of eyeball melanoma cases before and, since it’s quite rare, this is unusual. But at least he knows what it looks like.

We scheduled a visante OCT scan to give him more information about the bump.

Okay, so one week went by without wearing contacts and my eye was still fairly red. I decided to give it two weeks.

After two weeks my eye wasn’t nearly as red … it almost looked normal, in fact. However, I eventually noticed there was a raised bump-like thing just outside the edge of my iris. The “bump” seemed like it was slightly more noticeable (both visually when looking at my eye and being able to just feel it there with my eyelid) when my eyes were tired or dry.

I was excited to wear my contacts again (I hate wearing glasses) but, by the end of the day, my eye was as red as ever. Sigh.

Enough is enough. I decided to find an opthamalogist to get another opinion about what was causing this redness.

I’ve been thinking about the optometrist’s “wind and dirt” comment. No way. You see, I’m not really an outdoors kind of woman. A little weekend gardening, but that’s about it.

My eyes have always been really sensitive to the sun, so I’m rarely outside for any reason without sunglasses. So how does all this wind and dirt get into my eyes? Hmmm.

Well, I’ll still give up my contacts for a bit to see it that takes care of the problem.

Okay, so I’m really tired of looking weird with my red eye. Even with trying to rest it more, it’s still bright red most of the time. Plus it’s distracting when I talking with potential clients. I mean, really, I can’t blame anyone who’s trying to concentrate on what I’m saying when there’s this blood red eye calling to you!

I decided to stop by my optometrist’s office to see if he could prescribe some heavy duty eye drops for me. After all, I was completely convinced it was caused by my extensive use of my eyes on reading and/or the computer.

He took one look at my eye, nodded, and said it knew what it was. He even showed me a picture and description in a book he had. Of course, I didn’t write it down and immediately forget what he called it. He said it was caused by wind and dirt getting in my eye over time. He said that it should clear up if I quit wearing my contacts for a week.

So I went home and put away my contacts for a week.

I first realized something was wrong when the outside half of my left eye was red more often than not. Since I wear contact lenses and am on the computer a lot for my work, at first I thought it was related to that. Not to mention that most of this year I’ve noticed that my eyes felt really dry most days. I also started noticing that, even without my contacts in, my left eye felt irritated late in the day when my eyes were tired from reading or the computer.

Now, when I’m talking about a red eye I’m talking about more than just a Visine moment. Picture the white on both sides of your iris. Now picture that white half on the whole outside (nearest your ear) part of your eye is really red … like blood red. Yeah, not an attractive look! I’ve actually seen a couple of people with that look in the past and wondered what could cause that much red. I eventually found out what caused mine.

I’m writing this blog to take you through the events of my discovery that I have conjunctival melanoma (a rare cancer on the eyeball) and the experiences I have had dealing with it. Therefore, the posts will be sporadic as things unfold. The most recent post will always be right below this announcement. If you haven’t been keeping up, it’ll be easier to go to the Archives on the left and work your way up through the months. Please feel free to comment!