Sometimes it’s good being a diabetic! As such I have my eyes photographed every year to check for:-
Diabetic retinopathy, one of the most common causes of sight loss among people of working age.
It occurs when diabetes affects small blood vessels, damaging the part of the eye called the retina. When the blood vessels in the central area of the retina (the macula) are affected, it's known as diabetic maculopathy. People with diabetes should also see their optician every two years for a regular eye test. Diabetic eye screening is specifically for diabetic retinopathy and can't be relied upon for other conditions.
Anyway, back to me... while looking for the above, the optician noticed a ‘shadow’ in my right eye and sent me to see the specialist at Bath Hospital. He in turn sent me to the special specialist at Liverpool Eye Hospital, this is all within the matter of a couple of weeks!
So… It transpires I have a mole on the rear face of the right eye. Technically this is a “Large pigmented choroidal lesion with diameter of 6*3DD”. This is a cancerous malignant melanoma about 8mm X 3mm and quite close to the Fovea (a small depression in the retina of the eye where visual acuity is highest. The centre of the field of vision is focused in this region, where retinal cones are particularly concentrated).
To treat it I have to return to Liverpool in early January for more measurements and to have a face mask made to measure, (I’m not that ugly)! Also to have a brass plate through which the beam is fired cut to the size of the melanoma manufactured. This is to ready me for Proton beam therapy where they fire protons (a stable subatomic particle occurring in all atomic nuclei, with a positive electric charge equal in magnitude to that of an electron.) at the tumour to zap and kill it. Only about 6 people out of a million get this melanoma so I’m quite special!
So tomorrow we're up to The Wirral to Clatterbridge hospital on
Monday for a trial run, then a proton japping each day of the week. If 'they' don't zap it completely it may escape to my liver, (now how the heck do the nasties know (or find) their way?
There is a possibility that I may lose the sight in my right eye in 18 months to two years even after a complete success. So keep fingers crossed for me Cheers Tony.