How I'm Beating Eye Cancer in 2020 (Ocular Melanoma)

In this video I share my CANCER journey from diagnosis to surgery and to recovery. In 2019 I was diagnosed with Ocular Melanoma (EYE CANCER), which is a rare and incurable cancer. This is my story of how I am dealing with the disease, how I changed my life, and how I am moving forward, one day at a time. learn more here: http://ocularmelanoma.org/

WHAT IS OCULAR MELANOMA?

Like melanoma on skin, Ocular Melanoma is also a cancer of the cells that produce pigment, but the two cancers are not related otherwise. Pigment gives your hair, skin and eyes their color. As of this writing, there is no cure for Ocular Melanoma and cancer treatments such as Chemotherapy are ineffective against the spread of the disease. An extremely rare cancer, there are only a couple of thousand new cases per year in the United States. Lucky me, this is my one in a million opportunity!

Only 3% of Ocular Melanoma diagnoses reveal cancer in other areas of the body, the 5 year rate of metastasis approaches 50%. The earlier the cancer is identified and treated, the size of the tumor and the location of the tumor can help doctors determine an individual's survival prognosis and treatment plan.

MY STORY

First and most importantly, most Ocular Melanoma doctors, related oncologist, and medical journals agree that there is no known cause of the disease and the diagnosis is just bad luck. One would think that like melanoma of the skin, Ocular Melanoma would be related to exposure to the sun—it's not. How can this be? I've totally allowed the sun to abuse my eyes and skin. I've run 7 marathons, which include thousands of miles of in the sun training. I was a bike racer for nearly a decade, again spending countless hours in the sun training for the next big race. I also spent months of my life on ice and snow skiing and participating in NOLS mountaineering courses in Washington and Wyoming—mostly without wearing any form of eye protection. Not sure how it fits in, but I did wear glasses and contacts for 20 year until I had Lasik surgery at Stanford hospital in early 2000.

For the past 20 years, my wife Diana and I have lived in Manhattan Beach, California, working, living and loving the beach life. In August of 2019 I started to notice, especially at night, small flashes of white light in the corner of my right eye. Not unlike a car's headlight catching you attention in your peripheral vision, but there never was a complimentary car, just darkness. I did a cursory search on Dr. Google, and I came across my first self diagnosis, a visual migraine. Sure, Cancer was down the page a little bit, but who's ever heard of eye cancer. Plus, there's no cancer in my family. So visual migraine it was. In late October of 2019 my wife and I attended parent night at our son's soccer club and they had a DJ with synced disco lighting. My flashy lights were not just intermittent, they were consistent and scary. Man, I thought. I must have a detached retina.

After dragging my feet and pushing off making an appointment to see an ophthalmologist, I finally scheduled time at Look Optometry in downtown Manhattan Beach. I went on a Saturday and everything was fine until the ophthalmologist scanned my eye and mumbled an "oh!" She let me know that I had a "mass" in my right eye and that I needed to see a specialist in Torrance. I asked how worried I should be on a scale of 1 to 10, the doctor said maybe a six. However, her actions spoke a thousand words and she was non-verbally communicating a 10. Lots of kinetic movements trying to find me the retina specialist referral.

The Torrance retina specialist, who is extremely well respected in the South Bay of Los Angeles was my next stop. Although his cancer diagnosis was accurate, he was very blunt and essentially told me that I was going to die, and that my eye cancer was most likely a secondary cancer. The shock of being told you have cancer is overwhelming and paralyzing. I suppose he may have "pulled the band-aid off" too quickly, which led us to seek out the top ocular melanoma specialist in Los Angeles.

Through neighborhood friends in Manhattan Beach, we were referred to Dr. Jesse Berry at USC, the top rated eye cancer specialist in Los Angeles. More tests, cat scans and specialized eye test confirmed the cancer diagnosis. On this day I was knowingly living with Cancer.

Now you know the events that led to my cancer diagnosis and this video covers my radiation treatment (brachytherapy) and recovery under Dr. Berry. As of November of 2020, I am also seeing Dr. Dan at Gombos, at MD Anderson cancer hospital in Houston. Dr. Berry and Dr. Gombos are two of the top medical practitioners in the field and I am so lucky to have them on my side and team.

Some of our favorite web resources:

https://providers.keckmedicine.....org/provider/Jesse+

https://faculty.mdanderson.org..../profiles/dan_gombos

https://www.herbdoc.com
https://barlowherbal.com
https://www.chrisbeatcancer.com
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  Eye Melanoma