Confession

 I have a confession to make. As much as mean it when I say "Id rather have this droopy, baggy eye and be alive, than have cancer in my eye, or no eye, or even have lost my life" I still sometimes struggle with the cosmetic portion of this dang eye! Sometimes vanity gets the best of me and I find myself wishing I hadnt had raditation (or cancer for that matter) and that my eye still looked normal. I know it doesnt look bad. And really, truely, this is not a post trying to get attention or people to tell me my eye looks fine. I know it looks fine. I just have extra reason to be thinking about this today. 

You see, we went to Tony Grove today and took family pictures with my tripod. One of the nice things about being a photographer is that I can update my family pictures as often as I want without having to pay :) So as im going through pictures we took today, I realized my eye was really baggy today. And I found myself having a hard time deciding if I wanted to edit my eye or leave it be.  As a photographer and as a human, I believe there is nothing wrong with doing a few touch up edits and wanting to look your best self, especially in pictures that will be around a long time, and act as a reminder of what you looked like in that period of time. Why do we take pictures in the first place? So we can look back later and remember what things/we were like.  

I wish that THIS is what I still looked like 

with an eye that opens all the way and doesn't have a big dark bag under it

But this is my eye without the magic of photoshop

I guess my issue is really less about a picture of my face, and more about my cancer in general.

I recently had a bit of a scare. I went in for my 6 month post diagnosis check up, blood work and chest x-ray. And there was a small nodule on one of my lungs showing in the chest x-ray. Which really shook me. I was very scared. The lungs are the second most common place for my type of cancer to metastasize to. And metastatic uveal melanoma currently does not have a cure. 

I am able to look up my test results on line, so a few hours after my tests were performed, I looked online, and read the report that said they saw a nodule on my lung. And my oncologists office was already closed for the night. So I spent the night running all sorts of different scenarios through my head about if I could beat metastatic melanoma and about dying. Now, I should quickly add, before you all think that im dying, that the next day my doctor ordered another chest x-ray with multiple views, and they did not find anything. So what they 'found' on my first x-ray was just a shadow. But it really took me back to my first few days after diagnosis. I remember feeling really depressed and thinking that even if this cancer doesnt beat me now, im going to spend the rest of my life waiting and wondering if/when the cancer will spread. Technically I will never be considered 'in remission'. They just dont ever count it that way for my type of cancer. And the statistics of 'the general population of uveal melanoma cancer patients' is that FIFTY PERCENT of pts will have a metastatic melanoma sometime in their life. FIFTY PERCENT. Yikes. I was blessed enough to have genetic testing done at the time of my radiation implantation, and my results showed that I am in the lowest risk catagory for metastasis, less than 10%. But man. For those LONG hours when I thought I had something on my lung, all I could think about was that I was going to die. I knew that it could turn out to be nothing, but when you have cancer, its hard for you not to think about that.

Of course I was relieved to know that there was nothing on my lung. But I was still pretty bitter for a few days after the good news. I was upset that I had to even be concerned about metastatic cancer. I was upset that even though I dont have nodules on my lungs, its still a possibility that I could in the future, and that at no point FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE will I not have to worry about these things. 

I know A LOT of people have cancer. I am not special in this. But man, it sure sucks :)

Now let me wrap this up nicely for you and end on a happy note. I got over being bitter. I still dont like it, but its fine, and I am fine.  I truly am grateful that I am fine. Im grateful that my cancer wasn't worse, and that ALL of my tests so far have (eventually) come back good. Im grateful that the procedure worked so well so fast. I still have cancer in my eye, but I can see the difference, it is getting smaller. I am grateful for all of the love and support people have given me. And believe it or not, im even (sometimes) grateful that I have cancer, baggy eye or not. My grandpa Brown was an amazing man, and even though I was pretty young when he passed away, I learned something really important from him. He always said "I never had a trial a day in my life, only opportunities to learn and grow"

 I am grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow.