Not getting all the answers...but still full of blessings.

It's hard to get all the answers when no one knows the all the questions.  

We went back to see Dr. Shere, my retina specialist, to see if the meds I am taking and/or the drops I am using is working at all.  After 6 days on a anti-viral medication, also 4 days on an antibiotic, along with Prednisone drops every hour while I am awake, you would think there would be a change.  Ha HA!!!  You would be wrong.  No change!

My titer for Toxoplasmosis came back negative, which is good.  Earline might not be trying to kill me.  Though there is another test I am waiting on, so it still might be her.  Dr. Shere did end up giving me an injection of Kenalog into my eyeball, and then because the pressure in my eyeball was too high, and I was totally blind in my left eye, he had to take a few ml of vitreous fluid back out of my eye to restore my sight.  What an odd experience.

Let me also say, you don't know terror until you are laying flat in an exam chair, your eyelids held open by some wire contraption, and your doctor standing over you with a needle in your eyeball.  He tells you to look straight ahead and DON'T MOVE, and now not moving all you can think of not doing, and it takes EVERY OUNCE OF RESTRAINT you have in your body to not move that eyeball the slightest.  There is a needle in it, after all.

I made it through.  I am off the Bactrin and have been prescribed Doxycycline to get a foot up if the Bartonella test comes back positive.  Still have to do the eye drops every hour while I am awake, so I set a timer on my phone to go off every hour.  I have learned that an hour doesn't last a very long time.

So, whatever is going on with my eye is still pretty much a mystery.  I asked Dr. Shere what if the Bartonella comes back negative, and he said "Then we just don't know.  Idiopathic.  No known cause," which is frustrating.  Perhaps for him as much as me.  The only thing we know for sure is that my immune system has been compromised because of the chemotherapy.  Hell, I was neutropenic half the time, so who knows where I could have picked up the bug that's messing with my eyeballs.  

I just hope that one of the handful of treatments I am on for this, works and heals my eye.  I pretty much only have peripheral vision in my left eye because of the position of the swollen optic nerve, which is obstructing the center of my field of vision.  However, whatever I can see in my peripheral is still obstructed by blurry vision and a dark shadow.  That is caused by the overall swelling and irritation of my eyeball.  

Anyway, chemo tomorrow.  I didn't get it last week because Dr. Siemers wanted to make sure my eye stuff wasn't related to the new chemo drug I am on (Taxol).  Dr. Shere said there was really no way to know if it was, so I guess if I go blind in the right eye too, we can explore that possibility a little further.

Back to Green Bay for a follow up with Dr. Shere a week from today.  Veruca has been packing on the miles these last few weeks.  Today we only went to Marinette, WI (har har), but our trip to Green Bay next Monday will make six trips we have taken in just over a months time.  Boy, I can't tell you how thankful I am that Gerry's job is so flexible.  He has been able to take every day off that I have needed him, either to drive me to chemo or to Green Bay. 

I really feel blessed that I have had it "so easy" in that regard.  I know there are other cancer patients who don't have the same, and I can only imagine the unnecessary stress it puts on an already sick person.  Those first several weeks of my chemo, I was so sick and felt so miserable, I don't know that I would have had the energy, or even the ambition, to worry about rides and what-not.  I think it is easily forgotten that not everyone has a readily available support system to help them through tough times.  If I am getting anything out of this cancer experience, it is how lucky I am that this happened when it did, and how blessed I am to have the support system I do.  It has also really made me think about those who don't; I often think about ways of how to correct that.

Most people wouldn't say cancer is a blessing, but I am going to say that, for me, it has been.  It has been made more than clear to me how much I am loved and valued.  I have always struggled with letting myself see that truth, because I always felt like I wasn't worth the time and effort.  But this experience has forced me to see it, and accept it.  It has been a very valuable lesson...and awakening...for me.

I am more blessed than I ever thought possible, and for that, I am so very, very grateful.

Peace and Love, my friends.