Abridged version for your sake :)

I thought I'd be kind and lump some of the following into a more condensed version so that people don't get too bored with the intricate details (myself included). Though if anyone is wondering about more details, feel free to leave a comment or email me and I will gladly bombard you with the minutia of things.

So, after that highly un-impressive visit with my Dr. at MEEI (let's call him "Dr. G." from now on). I went home and put my over $200,000 worth of education brain to work and threw myself into research. I found statistics, articles, two - exactly - two support sites for people with Choridal Melanoma, and lots of info about the eye and cancer that I never had any burning desire to know before this.

In a nutshell, Choroidal Melanoma is the most common adult ocular malignancy, however it is also one of the most rare cancers. It's incidence is only 6 in 1,000,000 (that's right 1 MILLION!) people-- lucky me! Not only that but the median age for a person with this disease is somewhere between 60-70 years old (NOT 25!). It also unlike many cancers in that it is not unanimously "staged", instead it is usually graded by "size" as one of the determining factors in a patient's prognosis. The sizes range from small - large with no specification for those of us who are X-small or X-large. I fell into the medium/large category. A large tumor is described as one who's largest tumor diameter is 16mm or greater, and/or who's height is 10mm or greater. I was 16.1mm at the largest, but only 6.5mm in height. Lucky me yet again. I was told by one of the dr. that if this sized tumor were anywhere other than they eye they would just go in and "pluck" it out and be on there way, but the eye is a much different story.

There are three well known types of treatment for choroidal melanomas, though various other methods exist as well : enucleation (removal of the eye), Plaque brachyotherapy (or plaque radiation), and Proton Beam irradiation. I chose to have Proton Beam, though I'm not sure it was actually an active choice so much as being in the right location at the right time. I still believe, after all my research that PB will give me the best odds of having no recurrence in my eye, and also of hopefully some day (when the fluid in my eye drains) regaining some of what is now lost vision.

The surgery for the rings (which guide the radiation machine) was fairly painless, I've definitely experience much worse pain when I had my two ACL reconstructions. And I was able to attend a business trip in Malta (Feb 13th-18th) inbetween surgery and starting my radiation. The trip was both a good distraction and a horrible idea. I was so lonely being that far away from home, and a bit sick from the lack of sleep and nerves about the upcoming treatment and about ya know having cancer at 25. However it was a good thing to be at conferences all day and also my boss and coworkers were very impressed that I showed up and I'm glad I did as I think it gave me more "street cred" :) when I needed time after the radiation.

Oh a little more about my learning: the 80% no spreading was a load of crap, and I later discovered that in fact my chances were much closer to 50/50 over the course of my lifetime -- with no way to tell where I would fall in that spectrum. Now some of you may be thinking, "if it spreads you just fight harder... go-team-go", that's great positivity, buuuuttt not all that reassuring facing the stats of my disease. Seems that choroidal melanoma (CM) spreads 1st and most likely to the liver (about 85-90% of spreading shows up here first), then to the lungs, and finally anywhere else. Now the downside to all of this (cuz ya know having cancer itself isn't all that bad, it's only bad when you can't guarantee a win), is that metastatic (the fancy word for cancer that has spread) CM doesn't respond to most treatments currently developed for the killing of cancer. hoo0-rayyy (imagine my sarcasm if you will..). Apparently CM is a very resilient little bugger once it spreads, and although there are many valiant doctors and pioneer patients trying all sorts of different treatments there is no known protocol for treating it once its spread. That said, if it spreads and you do nothing the average life expectancy is 2-8 MONTHS. Yeah, that's also very not cool if you want my opinion.

So anyways, after accumulating some knowledge and finishing radiation (I only lost a few eye lashes, have a small burn, but have lost most of the vision in my left eye) I saught out a Dr. that would be willing to pursue an aggressive proactive plan to try and combat this aggressive cancer.