Page 159 - The Freckled Eye - Book

Chapter 20 A Sign

While resting on the couch in the cabin, still coming to grips with what had
transpired over the last year, and the good news from the week before, I
received an email. It was from Linda, my dad’s wife. I thought, hmmm, I
wonder what she could be emailing about. We’d just talked.

As I read the email, I was in shock once again. One of our dearest family
friend’s (Donna) who I had known all my life, had been diagnosed a month
before with a cancerous choroidal nevus, just as I had. Her mole was in the
same location as mine. I couldn’t believe it. It was absolutely
unbelievable. Someone that I knew, was among the 6 out of 1 million going
through what I had.

Linda asked if I could give her a call, because Donna was scared. There was
no doubt, I’d do just that. I knew exactly what she must be feeling, how
scared she must be and how little positive information there was out there
about this rare cancer. I quickly called the number Linda given me.

The number was to Donna's daughter Tracy’s cell phone. When I called, I spoke with
Tracy first and learned about where her mom was in the process and the details of her
mom’s cancerous mole. It was exactly like mine, but bigger. She didn’t know the exact
size, only to say it was on the larger size of medium. Her mom had also had a blood
vessel that had irrupted, which had caused her some vision loss. The way Tracy
described her mom’s vision was just as I had described it. There was a gray shadow. I
told her I knew exactly what she was talking about. I had that too, but my shadow was
due to the fluid linking from my mole onto my retina. However, the gray shadow in my
eye, had changed to permanent loss of vision due to the Heat Laser treatment I had
tried before Radiation Therapy.

Once I had the story, Tracy passed the phone to her mom. Donna, who is 82
years old. Donna is the sweetest lady I've ever meet She reminds me of an
angel. She’d always called me Teri Anne, which I loved. Whenever I heard
someone call me that, I knew it was someone I’d known for a very long time.

I could hear the fear and uncertainty in her voice. As we talked, I told her my
story with the hopes it would lessen her fear about the whole process and
help answer any questions she might have had. Most importantly, I wanted
her to know that I was here and she could call me anytime.

There was very little information given to me about what to expect throughout
the process, and the internet only offered horrible stories. All I wanted was to