Life's Journey

Well it's been quite a week… We got home from our amazing adventure on Monday Night. Tuesday I had chemo and Roy was back to work. Wednesday we spent the day in the Emergency Room. Yup, another day in the ER. Here's what happened…

Wednesday I woke up and wasn’t feeling great but just had chemo so its par for the course. But, I noticed that my eyesight was really blurry. I assumed it was just morning sleep in my eye and wondered if I was maybe getting pink eye again. I went to the bathroom and washed my face and got distracted with our morning routine. I sent Roy off to work, let Ben out and settled into the recliner with my cup of coffee. My eye was really bugging me, still super blurry. I went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror and kinda freaked out. My right eye was totally dilated. My left eye was fine but my right looked like an alien eye. I immediately called supernurse Michele. She had never heard of this being a side effect of chemo so she called Dr. B. She called me back right away and told me to go to the ER. She said they need to run a CT scan of my head to make sure there are no new lesions. What!?!?! CRAP!!!! I called Roy and he came home right away to take me to the hospital. He was just as shocked when he saw my eyes…. Its bizarre. So off we went and I tried to keep myself calm until we figure out what is really happening.

We got to the ER and it was thankfully pretty quiet. Michele had called ahead to let them know I was coming in so they had my history already. They checked me in and got me a bed. Let me tell you, nothing happens fast in the ER. The Dr came in to talk to me and said he wanted to order a CT of my head but wanted to talk to my oncologist first to ensure there was nothing special we needed to do. He asked me and Roy a lot of questions and mentioned that he was concerned that I may have had a stroke - but I wasn’t showing any other signs of this happening. Finally 2 hours later I got the scan done. And we waited… and waited… and waited… for results. An hour or so later the dr came in and said he wasn’t seeing anything of concern on the scans but wanted to wait for the radiologists report which should be back in the next 10 minutes or so. We were relieved to hear that there weren't blaring signs of lesions or tumors in my head. Phew. But, what was causing my eye to dilate? It had now been about 4 hours and my eye was actually starting to get better on its own. But, still wasn’t right and we needed to figure out why this happened. 10 minutes turned into over an hour and he finally came in and said "we don’t know what caused this". Great! So helpful! 5 hours in the ER and they don’t know what is wrong with me. Seriously I am one anomaly after another. Since my eye seemed to be getting back to normal on its own they sent me home and told me to follow up with my eye doctor.

So… there was relief in finding that there is nothing growing in my head, but worry in not figuring out why this happened. I spoke to Michele and she said the eye doc was the next best step. I scheduled an appointment with my eye doctor for the next day.

The next morning my eye was still a little dilated, but nothing like the day before. And my eye sight seemed fine. Roy decided to work from home this day just in case something bizarre happened again. I went to see the eye doc in the morning. I explained what happened. He ran some tests and found that my sight is good, my eyes were responsive to all his tests. He said "we have to assume this is a reaction to one of the drugs you were given on Tuesday with chemo". Ugh. I hate that response, basically we still don't know what happened or why. But, it is what it is. So, I was chatting with the eye doc just catching up and told him we just got back from this amazing trip and how hard it was to come back to this crummy reality… blah blah blah… Then he turned to me and asked if I was using a seasickness patch while on the cruise. Sure enough, I was using the patch that you stick behind your ear. I swapped ears every 3 days. It just happens that the last patch was on the right side - same side as the wonky eye. He explained that these patches have the same active ingredient that they use in the eye drops that dilate your eyes. He said some people will have this reaction but its very rare and it should happen when the patch is still on. But, we have to assume that something with the chemo reacted to the patch drugs which were obviously still in my system and caused this reaction.

So, 5 hours in the ER, CT scans of my head, concerns of a stroke, and it turns out it was all due to the stupid seasickness patch! Today my eye is still just slightly dilated, but not enough to have any impact on my sight. Its been quite the crazy week! Im just so grateful this happened after we got home, not while on vacation! Phew! But, this is it, abnormal is the new normal for me. This is my full time job - taking care of myself and all my abnormal anomalies. This is exhausting!

Hugs and smilesSarah