View From My Window: A Personal Account From an Eye Cancer Survivor

"If you have what I think you have, you may only have six months to live," he said with a serious look on his face.

I was in shock. What was he was saying? I felt fine and could not imagine for a moment I could die within six months. The doctor said he was quite certain I had iris melanoma, an extremely rare, highly lethal form of eye cancer that grows around the iris. Once it has grown all the way around the iris, it quickly spreads to the liver and throughout the body. My best chance for survival-if the cancer had not yet spread-was to remove my eye.

This book follows my life during a six-year period and contains some of my journal entries and post-surgery pictures. I recount my experience with eye cancer, which includes testing and diagnosis, eye removal surgery, the recovery period, my prosthetic eye fitting, adjusting to single-eye vision, the complications, a second corrective surgery, and a second recovery period.

Along the way, I reflect on my life prior to my diagnosis, including my teenage pregnancy, my struggle with depression and anxiety, and my mother's battle with cancer that began two decades before mine.

My close relationship with my fiancé, Gary, is evident throughout my story. I describe how patient and accommodating he was while helping me navigate through a life-altering, life-threatening illness. When I was facing the possibility of a second dangerous cancer scare, we decided to get married and Gary became my son's legal father.