Desmond

This information is paraphrased from an e-mail Jeremy and I sent to some family yesterday...

At the beginning of January, Des had a small-ish bump under his right eye.  As January progressed, it stated getting worse (bigger).  Jeremy took him to his primary physician, who referred us to an Ophthalmologist specialist (Dr. Brooks).  He took a look and said it could be one of a few thing - prescribed some drops, said they could help, and scheduled a follow up for two weeks.  Through that week, it got worse, so we pulled in the appointment.  After reviewing, he referred us to a cornea sub-specialist (Dr. Miller), and an Octal Plastics sub-specialist (Dr. McInnes).

We met with the Cornea doctor (Dr. Miller) last Monday (January 27) who did a series of tests, ordered an MRI, and referred us to an Octal Plastics sub-specialist (the same one the Ophthalmologist referred us to [Dr. McInnes]).  Desmond and I went to Dr. McInnes on Wednesday (January 29).  He assisted in scheduling the MRI for Friday 1/31, did some more tests, and said he needed the MRI results before he could really do anything more.

So, Friday morning, as we were getting ready to go, Desmond snuck an orange (he literally ate it as quickly as he could when Jeremy was in the bathrom). Subsequently, he could not be given anaesthesia and we had to reschedule the MRI - fortunately, they were able to get us in Monday (February 3).  After the MRI, Dr. McInnes scheduled surgery, for removal and biopsy, first thing Tuesday morning (February 4).  We went in and the surgery went well, in that they were able to remove most of it.  They did find three different "items" involved in it, so all three were sent off to biopsy.

We received a call from Dr. McInnes late Tuesday night, who said that he had received the preliminary pathology report. He said that the cells from the main mass were consistent with what they see in Sarcoma, and they are going to proceed as it is malignant.  We have a meeting with the pathologist this afternoon at 1:15 pm, and will update everybody as we can.

Our major request so far is that people don’t say “it’s going to be okay.” We do hope it’s going to be okay, but right now we are not okay and there is a big scary tunnel that we have to start walking through.

This upside down picture does a good job of showing how Desmond's eye was swollen before surgery.