“Look here,” instructs the
doctor as he points to the dark spots on the graph representing some visual “blanks”
in my right peripheral field of vision.
“Sometimes this is
simply an artifact.” He pauses briefly, “Now look here.” The kind doctor pulls the next graph from his
stack of test results. “This is your left eye.
Although not as pronounced it too has some deficits.” He lets that sink in before proceeding. “When the two of these occur together it is
suspicious for a possible tumor.”
Did he just say tumor?
“I think we should do
an MRI just to be safe. But before we do
that let’s redo this exam on Thursday and see if it is reproducible,” He
suggests without really wanting any input from me.
“You know,” I stammer,
with a little smile on my face, masking the sudden terror that the back of my
mind is experiencing. “You know, what my
mind is thinking don’t you? (Nervous short
laugh). Could this be a cancer re-occurrence? I just finished my last treatment about
one year ago.”
He looks up from his
computer, the one he was documenting numbers and impressions on. “Cancer? When did you have that?” And I explain to him about the history of surgery,
chemotherapy, and radiation and the current daily tamoxifen which I had previously
conveyed to his assistant. He seems
extra-alert. Perhaps that’s just my
imagination though. “Ah… given your
symptoms and these results I cannot rule out any brain mets,” he quietly says
half way to himself and to me. And he leans over his computer once again. Reviewing the results and what he wrote.
“I’ll see you Thursday
and we will repeat these tests. If the
results are the same then I think we’ll do an MRI. If they improve we will just watch and see.”
And he shakes my warm hand with his cool one and gives me an encouraging smile
before he exits the little room.
“OK,” I stammer and get
up to leave, grabbing my winter coat, red scarf, and black purse, escorted
through the maze of the office by his kind assistant. “See you Thursday!” she encouragingly says
before she too is off to the next patient, the next appointment.
I just went to get my
eyes checked.
For the past few weeks
my right eye has been having difficulty seeing – especially at night when the
lights become beautiful star-shaped colors – like looking at lights through
rain drops. My glasses help some but less so every day. And then there is this nagging, not really
painful, pressure at the temporal side of the eye. More irritating and distracting than
painful. At first I attributed it to the
stress of my job – I am on my computer many hours a day – and so eye fatigue
seemed a satisfactory explanation. Then,
when the glasses did not seem to help at all – and only increased my headache –
I called my ophthalmologist.
Tumor?
My thoughts and
emotions get all entangled as I drive home in the cold drizzly gray of a January
rain. My cure from stage III ductal breast cancer seems tenuous – resting on
hopes of successful treatment – treatments which were quite costly – costly on
many different levels. Successive tests
with negative results reinforcing the possibility of a longer earthly life. Yet, always, the little voice with the
concern that it could come back lingers. It lies
there suppressed most of the time.
Next week I have my
third quarterly checkup with my wonderful oncologist at Mayo Clinic.
Today’s Journey Joys: seedling
shelves being created, a flexible and challenging job, decluttering, blustery
north west wind, a bus driver who loves Ally
