My name is Michelle Deans and I am ‘Relish Woman’

I am using ‘I Patch For’ week to fundraise for the amazing charity OcuMel UK, to encourage everyone to go visit their Optician for an eye examination and to launch 'Relish Woman.'

As a lifelong superhero fan when I heard that my Eye Cancer,
also known as Ocular Melanoma, was to be treated with Eye Proton Beam Radiation I felt certain that I would end up with a super power. I initially assumed that this would take a physical form, perhaps x-ray vision, but in fact it took a psychological form – I became                Relish Woman: who makes the most of every day whilst accepting uncertainty.

Recently my friend Amy helped me turn the concept of Relish Woman into a visual form, now available as metallic pin badge, please see photo below.

Why Relish? 

I relish every day to the best of my ability; making enjoyment
with family and friends, putting gusto into managing living with vision loss, taking pleasure in connecting with the eye cancer community via OcuMel UK and taking (occasionally widely inappropriate) glee and laughter in the absurdity of the situations I find myself in.

Why uncertainty?

There is no remission for Eye Cancer, once diagnosed you are
routinely scanned for eye cancer spread, most commonly to the liver, for the rest of your life. At present this secondary eye cancer impacts 50% of people with eye cancer and is not yet curable.

It has been seven months since I had radiotherapy and my tumour has as yet shown no response to the treatment and continues to grow.

At present I have radiotherapy side effects including macular oedema causing a partially detached retina and complete left eye vision loss; I also have rather painful sceleritis and ocular surface disorder.

I am starting a new three month treatment on 13 May which will be injected through my eye to hopefully damage the tumour’s access to blood supply support and address some of the other issues.

I need your help to:

Give back to OcuMel UK and so if you can, please do make a donation (if you message me that you would like a Relish Woman badge I will happily post you one).

Raise awareness - please go see your Optician, they can identify all sorts of health conditions. You don’t need to wear glasses to benefit from an eye examination!

Like many people with Eye Cancer I was symptom free and at a
routine eye test, at my local Specsavers in Surbiton when the Optician saw ‘something they didn’t like’ and referred me to an ophthalmologist at Kingston Hospital - as with all health conditions the sooner you know about it the more you can do.

It is no exaggeration to say having regular eye examinations could save your life.