Category Archives: Health - Page 2

I Am Home

Posted by on August 13, 2011 3 comments

Rob: Post Enucleation

Rob: Post Enucleation

I am home. Comforting words if ever there were.

There has only been a few times in my life, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this too, that walking in the door helps to settle your nerves and put the previous events behind you.

I find it very hard to write about my enucleation, I am still in some pain. It is too fresh.
But I am well, otherwise, and look forward to sharing more of my journey in a couple of days time when my strength returns more.

The fake eye I am holding in the photo is a gift from a friend. Thanks Kat, you made me smile at a most dificult time.

In the Jean Barber cancer lodge

Posted by on August 9, 2011 No comments

This is the night before surgery. I am staying in the Jean Barber cancer lodge before my morning admission to the hospital.
I feel oddly calm. In this place, filled with positivity, it’s hard to feel scared of the future. Thank you Jean Barber, wherever you are.
To my family and friends, keep a thought for me. To you, a visitor to my story, thank you, your comments, and even just your visit here, have greatly lifted my spirit. I trust that somehow I have offered what you have searched for.
I am ready for surgery and to put this chapter behind me, I know that what happens after will be the biggest chapter of my life.

Pre-surgery Vacation

Posted by on July 30, 2011 1 comment

vacations are great stress relievers.

Rob in the pool.

I am happily spending two weeks with my sister and her husband, both are very supportive and we are having a blast.
Surgery is literally thousands of miles away and figuratively in another life.
I want to thank everyone that has reached out to me to offer their support.
This battle is never over and the gratitude I have for you is beyond words.
Take some time in the next week to really live your life, that is what I am doing!

Vancouver (Addendum)

Posted by on July 4, 2011 9 comments

The die was cast back in March 2003 that has led to the decision I made today: sacrifice my eye for the sake of my sanity and life.

Although I am not unscared of losing my eye I am more afraid of continuing this fight, this losing skirmish, with a cancer that has already taken so much from me.

I will sacrifice my eye to fight another day, should I have to fight again.

My eyesight is almost totally gone from my left eye. I have migraine-like headaches that, although cannot be directly linked to my eye, are located in my left forehead, above the eye, a migraine-like pain that has no other migraine symptoms other than the pain I feel. Maybe with the eye gone I will become more pain-free, closer to living a more normal life, and without the freaky wandering, lazy eye I have now.

I had a nice meeting with Marie, of the artificial eye clinic, and am more aware of what can and can’t be done, the healing times after my surgery and how the artificial eye is crafted and my eye socket prepared for the eye. No one will know but me. This offers a strange sort of exzcitement. And they do custom work, so I can get anything painted on the eye I don’t just have to have a pupil in place.

My surgery date is set and I have everything I need to prepare myself for this next step, enucleation.

Wish me well!