This is going to sound like one of those year-end wrap-ups, but we only just started the second half of the year. To me, though, this year has already been a whirlwind.
It started with me getting a concussion while riding my bicycle on the local bike trail. I wish I could tell you exactly what happened, but I literally can’t. I remember a few scattered moments, someone asking if they should call an ambulance, waiting at a traffic light, and opening my garage door. Everything in between is a mystery.
Somehow I had enough awareness to get myself home, but not knowing what actually happened still haunts me. Losing 45 minutes of your life is an unforgettable feeling.
While I was recovering from the concussion, I was also waiting on two life-changing events. I had just finished interviewing for a newly opened Principal Engineer position at work and I had an appointment with my eye specialist to find out whether the growth behind my eye had become active. By pure coincidence, both decisions were happening around the same time.
Jessica asked me which piece of news I would rather be good.
“The eye cancer,” I answered.
The night before my eye appointment, I was getting ready for bed when I received a calendar invite for the Principal Engineer decision meeting. I had to decline it and reschedule for the following morning because my eye appointment would take most of the day.
My specialist is about two hours away and appointments there rarely stay on schedule. After the usual imaging and an ultrasound, he compared the latest measurements to the ones from three months earlier. After a few quiet minutes, he gave me the news.
The mole had grown. It was officially uveal melanoma.
There isn’t much literature or many first-hand accounts about this type of cancer because it’s so rare. Only about 3,000 people in the United States are diagnosed each year and treatment plans are highly individualized.
That afternoon I went across the street for a CT scan of my lower abdomen to check my liver, since that’s one of the first places this cancer tends to spread. After that, Jessica and I grabbed a quick bite to eat in the hospital cafiteria. Then we headed for another CT scan, this time to map everything needed for the radiation treatment that would begin a few weeks later.
The drive home was quiet. Jessica kept reassuring me that we would get through it together and somewhere along the drive I called my parents to tell them the news.
The next morning I logged into work for the rescheduled meeting. It wasn’t good news either, they had decided to go with someone else.
That was the moment everything finally caught up with me. The concussion. The cancer diagnosis. The uncertainty. The disappointment. It all broke through at once. I don’t know how long I sat in my office crying.
A few hours later the promotion announcement went out and shortly after that I told my manager that I would be undergoing treatment in February and would need to be away from work while I recovered.
The treatment itself involved something I never imagined experiencing. The surgeons implanted a small gold radioactive disc, called a plaque, behind my eye. It stayed there for a week before they removed it and immediately followed up with thermal laser treatment. Both surgeries were early in the morning, so Jessica and I rented an Airbnb the night before each procedure. My dad came down to take care of Bandit and Tate while we were away.
Thankfully, the procedures themselves went smoothly. The hardest part was lying in bed afterward, trying to ignore the overwhelming urge to rub my eye.
So far, it seems to have worked. My first follow-up showed that the tumor was already shrinking and I have another appointment coming up soon. I’m not finished with this yet. I’ll need regular scans and checkups for the foreseeable future and I’ll probably always have a little anxiety before each appointment.
But I still have my eye. My vision is only slightly worse than it was before treatment, the tumor is shrinking, and that’s something I’m incredibly grateful for.
Here’s hoping the second half of the year is a little less eventful than the first.