Slice of Life | Treatment

Usually Jim travels to Halifax about every six months, but now he will return every six weeks. In an email to an inquiring friend, Jim explained what is happening much better than me. I am sharing his words here.

"One of the side effects of the radiation can be vision loss due to leakage - which is a blood vessel in the back of the eye that leaks into the eye and damages the retina and will eventually lead to blindness. Year one after surgery, my eyesight was 20/20, year two, 20/40 - which was considered within the norm for that period after treatment. Last month it had dropped to 20/60, which caused them to do a scan to see if I had leakage, which I do. 

It was recently discovered that a drug designed to treat colon cancer was effective in treating leakages in the eye. The drug works by shrinking the blood vessels and stopping the leak. There are no guarantees - it may do nothing, may stop it from getting worse, may improve my vision slightly or even significantly - each case is different.

The drug is administered through a needle into my eye, which is what I had done today. I have to go back every 6 weeks for another injection for a total of 6 injections."

Yesterday Jim had the first needle. He made it look easy.

Slice of Life