The waiting game

We got the diagnosis on Friday at about 5:20pm, which meant that the radiology places and blood testing services were closed for the weekend. So, the weekend was mostly about waiting and wondering. And learning.

Angel drove us home from the appointment with no problems, and after we got home we cried a little bit because I'm pretty sure we were both thinking about the worst case scenario. But, we quickly got to the point where we told ourselves that everything was going to be okay. After all, a lot of people who are much worse off than we are have gotten much worse news than we got. And I'm young (relatively speaking), and strong (relatively speaking), so if worse came to worse, that would always work in my favor.

After Angel and I could talk to each other about it while still being able to control our voices (without crying, I mean), I started calling my immediate family members to share the news. Just saying the initial sentence to describe what was happening was harder than I thought it would be. After that it was much easier to fill in the details.

Over the weekend Angel and I learned a lot more about choroidal melanoma. We learned that about 6 people out of every 1,000,000 get it each year in North America. That would be about 1800 people in the US each year. That's around 36 people in Arizona each year, on average. I thought about getting a lottery ticket. We also wondered how many other people in the US had their appendix rupture, suffered an indirect lightning strike, got shingles for their 30th birthday, and then ended up with eyeball cancer. I can't find a support group for those people yet.

We learned that a greater density of people get this cancer in Australia, where there's also a higher incidence of cutaneous melanoma (normal skin cancer), due to their ozone problems. Beyond that, however, it's not proven that UV exposure has anything to do with this cancer. And there are no known causes. I always wear sunglasses anyway, unless I leave them at Chad and Stacey's house for a few days. More people with blue eyes get this cancer than do brown eyed people.

After lots of conversations with each other and with other people, we've come to realize that this is something serious, but it's not the worst thing that could be happening. In our traditional style, we've made lots of jokes. I didn't realize before that Angel didn't really like my left eye that much anyway. My good friend Curtis said something to the effect that he always felt weird looking at my left eye in the past, so he won't miss it. When Angel first typed in the URL of this blog, she typed "bigtroubleiinlittleeyeball.blogspot.com", got a page load error, then said "aww, one too many i's!"

We still had moments this weekend where we got emotional, like when we started looking up the side effects of radiation near the face/head. Dry, painful skin, sores in the mouth, possibly some local hair loss. It's hard to imagine going through some of that stuff and not getting a little upset.

I also had to spend some time reading through my insurance paperwork to see what was going to be covered, what would need pre-approval, etc. Seems like such a stupid system where that's one of the first things you have to consider, instead of just getting well. Then I started to think that at this point in my career, I will be needing to change jobs in the near future. Unfortunately, this is now a pre-existing condition, so if it ever gives me any more problems between now and 2014, it'll be paid for out of my pocket. That is, assuming that provision of the healthcare bill is still around by then.

Overall, we were able to have a pretty relaxing weekend, despite the fact that I still had no clue whether the cancer had spread anywhere else. Also, I've noticed that each time I see the flash in my eye now, it means a little more to me than it did before.

I've gotten lots of phone calls, texts, and emails, and Angel has shown me lots of Facebook posts. We are blown away by the number of people that care for us. I haven't had a chance to respond to everyone, but I appreciate all of the love, thoughts, prayers, etc. It truly feels great to have such a large support network of people who have offered to help us out with anything we need. You can't imagine how great this makes us feel to know that everyone is pulling for us.