Page 10 - The Freckled Eye - Book

minute. Then Dr. Sharma said, basically we need to wait. We’ll need to schedule
another appointment in 3 months.

I thought… WAIT? … I don’t want to wait and have this thing grow in me. Isn’t
there anything we can do? Dr. Sharma said no. Since I'd never had my eyes checked
to have a base line, we don’t know how long the mole had been there, or it it had
grown at all, so we’d need to watch it.

The moles in my both my eyes could have easily been there since birth. They may not

have grown at all. All we knew is it was leaking and we’d need to wait and watch
it. He reiterated that this type of cancer grows slowly and it would take a few months
to see if there were any changes. I was like… what? Wait?! What the heck, I don’t
want that in there if it’s cancerous. There was no way for them to know for sure and a
biopsy wasn’t an option at that point. I didn’t understand why, but I learned later why
that was.

The best indicator Doctors have, to determine if a mole is malignant, is if it grows. There are
also some other characteristics, like leaking fluid, distortion and a few others, but even then, it’s
still possible that it’s not. The only way you really know is if a biopsy is done.

* That’s why going to get your eyes checked as early as possible is SO IMPORTANT. With
eye health, doctors need a base line to go off, should anything change in your eye. Since I
hadn't, we had to wait.

Dr. Sharma also mentioned a “cold laser treatment” we could potential do, that could
hopefully help with the fluid on my retina, but suggested we hold off on discussing it
until our next visit. In the meantime, Dr. Sharma wanted to refer me to the top Kaiser
eye specialist in San Francisco, CA just to be sure.

He spoke so highly of this doctor that I was relieved I was going to get a second
opinion. I found out later, the top Kaiser doctor, Dr. Phan, was going out on
maternity leave, so she wouldn’t be able to see me. Instead, Dr. Sharma forwarded
my reports to her for her to review. While we waited for Dr. Phans findings, Dr.
Sharma referred me to another out of network eye cancer specialist for another
opinion.

March 2016 –

A couple of weeks later I saw Dr. Elk Grove. I forget his name, so we’ll just call him
that. Elk Grove, CA is where I went to see him. He was an Ocular Oncologist
outside the Kaiser network. At this appointment, Dr. Elk Grove ran all new tests on
my eyes, similar to the tests Dr. Sharma had ran. After his analysis and comparison of