Sunday 16 December 2012

Eyes and a small favour

So I went to see a new eye consultant for a second opinion at a specialist eye hospital. I was called in by a very nice, Greek optometrist who took all the vision tests, scans etc. She put in eye drops which was a mission in itself as I couldn't stop blinking. She even said, "oooh, we have a blinker here!" which didn't help much. She eventually got them in and I went back to the waiting room to await the doctor.

He eventually called us in and I think "posh twat" would be quite an accurate description. He didn't bring much to the table, he looked through the scans and had a check of my eyes through another machine. He said that I do have keratoconus in my left eye, but was a number 1 on the seriousness scale. He said to come back in 6 months for a re-scan. And that was it. Quite different from the last doctor, who said it was quite urgent and wanted to start a procedure almost instantly! So I will go back to him then, if I haven't noticed any obvious differences in my vision.

Now a small favour.

My future brother-in-law will be running the London Marathon next year and is raising money for an incredible charity. Chai Cancer Care. They work with not only cancer patients, but their families, to help them cope with a cancer diagnosis. They were, and still are amazing to both me and my family. If you could sponsor him to raise money for this cause, it would be very much appreciated!

Here is the link:

http://www.forchai.org/rafisaltman

And here is the video again of the speech I made, high lighting why Chai is such a worthwhile cause:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk4oaRZvpv8

Tuesday 11 December 2012

An update and good news

Hello everyone! Sorry I have not written for a while, but here is the latest update!

Today I went to see my haematologist as a routine quarterly appointment. After waiting an hour and a half to see him (this isn't the longest I've had to wait for an appointment), I was called in to see him. I'd been sent for a blood test upon arrival, and luckily the phlebotomist got the needle in first time, so things started off well! He asked how I'd been, back at university etc. He looked at the results from my blood test and was really happy, saying things weren't only normal, but good! WOOOO!!

We started talking about the medication that I was still taking post shingles. These were anti-viral and he said I could stop taking them from now. This is the first time in 18 months where I've been on no pills or medication, so this felt like a great relief! After all the talking, he took me into a side room, to have a feel around for any potential raised lumps or lymph nodes. Always awkward in these sorts of situations, I started laughing when he was prodding under my arms. I'm not even ticklish. At least, I didn't think I was! After the awkward prodding and feeling around my neck, under arms and stomach, he said everything seemed fine! He wants to see me again in 3 months time!

That was the best I could have asked for to be honest! Tomorrow I am going for a second opinion to a specialist eye hospital about the blurred vision in my left eye. I will update my blog again later on in the week with the news from this.