Episode 13: Eyesight to the blind

One of the joys of having a critical condition is the extra medical attention you get, monitoring the disease. In this way, the medical world can uncover a whole range of other problems and so I now have pills to counteract the side effects of the pills I have to take to counteract my disease. And I have had laser beams shot into my eyeballs that I wouldn’t otherwise have known was necessary.

I awoke early with the sun streaming brightly through the window. My plans for the day were simple – a haircut and then off to work. The haircut went smoothly – hopefully not much can go wrong there – and I arrived at work.  The phone rang.

“It’s XXX from the hospital. We can fit you in for your eye surgery this morning.”

“Eye surgery?”  

Dr XXX has bought his machine in today and can do the laser surgery this morning. We’ve had a cancelation. Can you be here by ten?”

“Um, yeah.”

One of the side effects of my treatment is itchy eyes. I saw my GP and he recommended I see a specialist and wrote a referral. After a bit of prodding and testing I learn that my eyesight is fine, a bit of hypertension in the eyeballs, and the itchiness was due to the drugs. Here are some drops, we’ll make another appointment to follow up. No problems.

The second appointment came and my eyeballs were still over the normal pressure. I placed my head onto a machine and the doctor looks around my eyes. Something isn’t working as well as it should.  We can fix that, he says. Yeah, okay, I think.

My third appointment: laser eye surgery. I am sitting outside the consulting room wondering what the procedure is. When I get in the room, the specialist tells me it is just a matter of firing lasers into the back of my eyeballs, take about fifteen minutes. Do I want to go ahead? Um, yeah.

The procedure entailed a thing being put on my eyeball so that all I could see were little red dots. Then the laser would go off like a small bolt of lightning hitting somewhere inside my skull; the red dots disappeared briefly and then returned, then another lightning bolt, and so on for fifteen minutes (and $1000 – thank you Medicare).

My eyes ached. My skull was being struck with a variety of hammers, and a large beast was gnawing at the inside of my skull trying to escape, and I spend the rest of the day wearing my sunglasses, despite being inside. I can see as well as I could before. So, was it worth it? My next appointment is in week or so. Hopefully there won’t be any more surprises.

Episode 11: Bouncing

My mobile rang; the screen showed ‘private caller’. Curious, and with a bit of trepidation, I answered. It was the oncology nurse from the hospital with my latest blood results. It’s never good when the hospital rings to give you your results. Normally I have the blood taken one week and have a second appointment a month or so later when the results are back. I had been in the previous week for my results but they weren’t through yet, not the important ones at least.

The news wasn’t fantastic. My pcr-abl count, the measure of blood mutants, was up. There are a couple of possible reasons for the counts to go up; I’m not taking my drugs (which isn’t the case), a new mutation (the lab tested for this and found none) or … something else.

The first step is another blood test, another trip to hospital, and another month long wait for the results. So within the week I was back having a couple of fresh samples drained from my arm.

This graph should be a straight line – heading down. We want a logarithmic drop in numbers, ten-fold reductions are good and an increase from 0.07 to 0.22 is bad. The ski-jump at the end is what is worrying me at the moment. That is my bounce. It isn’t a huge bounce, but it is a bounce none the less. 

This isn’t the first time my results have bounced. The first led to a change in medication, the second was a ‘suck it and see’ response. This time … well, we have to wait.