Second opinions

I got a second opinion today that threw me for a bit of a loop.

A doctor at Cleveland Clinic (my mom did some research and used some connections to get me a name, then my doctors at Dean and Wills provided him with info and imaging about my case) got in touch today.

The results can be divided into two parts: yay and ...


Yay:
He agrees I have a melanoma. This was the main reason I reached out in the first place, so yay.


...: 
He's worried about my treatment plan. I'll have a 15 mm round plaque over my entire cornea, seeded throughout with radioactive seeds. This means my entire cornea will be irradiated, including my limbal stem cells. Limbal stem cells help the cornea stay healthy.

In short, if my cornea is damaged badly enough and my limbal stem cells are fried, they won't be useful in helping my cornea heal.

Apparently there's a way to extract limbal stem cells before plaque radiotherapy or proton beam irradiation and replaced afterwards to promote healing. He recommends not only that I have this done, but that I have bean irradiation instead of a plaque because the dosage to my cornea will be lower.

I now plan on doing my best to discuss this with Dr. Shields before my surgery tomorrow to make sure that our plan takes my age and corneal health into account (especially because of my age -- I'm younger than many patients with this thing -- I have more time to suffer from a severely damaged cornea should that be the result). I also want to confirm that covering the full cornea, as opposed to part of it, is something we're pursuing due to the danger of a diffuse iris melanoma like mine shedding cells to other parts of the iris.


Aaaaanyway, I'll try to blog before I go in tomorrow; even if so, you, dear readers, won't know the outcome of this line of inquiry until later in the day. I'll have Schrödinger's eye (is it covered in a radioactive implant or not?! BOTH) until I post again or you text me (or if you have her number, my mom).