One Year In

At exactly 5pm on Nov 27th 2018, a 45yr old, reasonably care free Mum, left a small café in St Johns Wood after eating a vegetarian chilli con carne and took a short walk to the Saint Johns and Saint Elizabeth Hospital. She spent 2 1/2 hours with an ophthalmologist there who raised concerns about the unusual and rare growth he could see on the back of her left eye. Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my formal diagnosis of Ocular Melanoma. A disease I had never heard of. A year ago today at around this time, 9:50pm, Greg and I sat on a train on the way back from London. He had come to join me after what was supposed to be a routine ophthalmologist appointment that turned into the most life changing two hours. I remember having to wait after I’d had my initial appointment while they administered more drops into my eyes whilst somebody else went in to see the specialist. I played on my phone for as long as the drops would allow me see until everything became blurry and then I just watched as people left the hospital as the evening progressed. 

Sat perfectly still with my chin perched on a metal resting plate, bright lights and a small mirror were held at various angles in front of my eyes. Long and steady focus in the left eye, then taking a quick glance in the right before coming back to the left. I asked him what he could see, what he was looking at? To which he answered ‘he wasn’t sure yet’. I was then moved into another room and had a fluorescent die injected through a cannula in my arm. Growing increasingly concerned as all this was happening, the wonderful nurse, the ophthalmologist and his assistant were able to clarify that there was indeed a growth on the back of my left eye. Then the words, ‘Can anybody could be with you?’ hit like a tonne of bricks! It was then I knew I had cancer. What I still didn’t know at that point was that the appointment on this day 12 months ago was in fact going to change every day of my life as I had known it – moving forward. I recall the tears falling from my eyes and the strangest numbing sensation in my hands and feet as I tried to regain enough composure to make a phone call to both my parents and also Greg. Mum and Dad were a very long way away from where I was at that moment, and Greg was in a basement with no phone signal. I tried to think logically about who we knew that still smoked and who may come upstairs so that they may get a signal/message to him that something was urgent. I sat in that room with a wonderful lady whose name I will never know until he arrived at the hospital. We left in silence and still unsure. We were told that the diagnosis had to be formally confirmed by the olocular oncologists. This happened by the lunchtime of our 9th wedding anniversary, 28th of November 2017. Cancer doesn’t decide when or where or how or whom, it just does. I have to say it is only now, one year in, I can even honestly say that I am starting to accept my diagnosis. I have met some of the most incredible people over the last 12 months, people whose paths may have never crossed mine without ocular melanoma. For that I am thankful. The understanding of what is so precious and the comprehension that life can change, stop or altar so vastly is still something I struggle to get my head around everyday. I have a lots of positive thoughts and intentions as having this rare cancer does pull you up on what’s actually truly important. Saying that, there are days when I don’t even want to look out of the window and face the world at all. Time’s of anger and bitterness and then calm, a weird calm. Let’s see what tomorrow brings, we can’t change what yesterday brought and we only know what has been today.