[rhoslynn]

Time goes by

by rhoslynn on Wed Nov 12, 2014 4:31 pm

Hello All of You!

When I last posted something, it was good news! Well, this time it gets to be mostly good!

We have wanted for many long years to move to my old family home of Cape Town, beautiful place where we both have spent many holidays together with our daughters and family. The family members have largely passed on and two of our daughters are living in other cities (Johannesburg and Leiden in Nederland), the other is here in Cape Town, which is great!

Before we sold and bought houses, I noticed that my eyesight was get rather crappy. I had stopped driving in Feb or March because not seeing all that was going on around me! Fun that! Now I had started with nice colourful rainbows around some lights. I had already sort of decided cataracts could well be the cause. Something to do with the dreaded cortisone! I left off visiting my tame optician until my oncologist took me off the cortisone! The good doc Devon did about a month before we were due to move! I popped in to see the eye man more to put my mind at rest than anything else.

Well, the good bit is he ruled out the dreaded glaucoma but confirm a pair of horrid cataracts! He wanted me to go and have them sorted out pronto. No chance of that with our 1400 km move a few weeks away.

So off we moved house to Cape Town. Got our feet and and booked appointments with the new Myeloma man Doc Mike at the Constainiaberg hospital and the eye doc Andrew at the Vincent Palotti hospital.

Dr Mike is really great, first visit saw my CR confirmed and my thalidomide daily intake reduced by half! Next visit just over a week ago, he dropped my thalidomide completely, and I see him again in Feb 2015. Yippee!

We had already seen the eye man and he had said "No contact lenses for 4 weeks!" I have keratoconus so that pretty much stopped me wearing glasses 45 years ago! I am very very short sighted so it was rather a fun time for 4 weeks. We had problems with medical aid not having the eye docs hospital as part of our plan but Doc Andrew said no problem just go to the Claremont and see his dear friend, Doc Dale, which we did!

My exciting keratoconus and short sightedness ruled out an implant once the cataract was removed. And removed the right hand one a week ago, and a new contact lens will be measured up and made in a week or two!

So there! Off all meds now after ASCT in October 2013. So there we have a few grotty issues with my eyes but the rest all good! From a pretty bad start to pretty good right now on the myeloma side.

That proves one thing that always is stressed by so many: Don't let any cowboy doctor try and treat your myeloma!!! The doc better know all the ins and outs!

It's not too often we hear about a year or more later. Keep us updated?

Angela