December 13, 2007

Eye Appointment

Hi Everyone,

I’m afraid there’s not much to report after Evan’s appointment with the retina specialist on Tuesday. After two and a half hours of testing, he basically just confirmed what we already knew - that the fluid collecting behind Evan’s retina is coming from a leaking blood vessel. The only new information we got was that the problem is most likely being caused by the high doses of the anti-inflammatory steroid (Decadron) that Evan has been taking for the last four months.

The only good news about that is that Evan’s oncologist has been gradually lowering his dose of Decadron, and we’re hoping he will be off of it completely in about three weeks. The eye doctor expects Evan’s vision problem to go away on its own within a few months after he stops taking the medication. If not, the treatment would be some type of eye injections or a laser eye surgery.

We’re not too happy about having to wait for months to see if it goes away on its own. But evidently the treatment options are pretty major, and probably pretty expensive, so they don’t just jump into these procedures unless they absolutely have to. So, once again, the name of the game is “wait and see.” You would think we’d be used to that answer by now, but it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier.

Hopefully we’ll have better news the next time you hear from us. Until then, we hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!!!

Love,
Margot