A woman has shared how she had to have her right eye removed after a black spot appeared – which turned out to be cancer.
Danet Kym Peterson was experiencing headaches and blurred vision for a few weeks when she decided to go to her doctor.
Upon inspecting her eye, the GP was immediately worried and sent the 31-year-old to an ocular oncologist.
Sadly, the specialist confirmed these concerns as Danet was told they had found a tumour, which had filled nearly half of her right eyeball.
The mum and her family – husband, Danny, and children, Joshua, 10, Tatum, seven, and Melody, four – were devastated.
“I went home in total shock, in tears off and on and trying to avoid thinking about it,” Danet, a social media manager, from Phoenix, Arizona, told Jam Press.
“But I went looking for the proof of the hard things I’d tackled in life before.
“And it completely changed my outlook.”
The same month of the diagnosis in July 2020, Danet had radiation therapy on her eyeball, which is when a small radioactive disc, called a plaque, is placed over the cancer in the area of the eye.
A few months later, the plaque was removed and not long after that, she was declared cancer-free. But in August 2022, during a routine scan, the nightmare returned.
Danet said: “I got the news that it looked like I had a spot on my liver.
“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever felt.
“I was in limbo from August to October, watching with my doctor, trying to determine if it truly was a spot that was changing, and my doctor was also waiting for more spots to crop up.
“By October, they confirmed it was growing and we had grounds to biopsy.”
Following the biopsy, it was confirmed to be cancer and on 18 November 2022, the mum was taken in for a liver ablation, which is when doctors use heat to destroy tumours on the liver.
She said: “I prepared for surgery to do a liver ablation, trusting my gut that this course of action was the one I needed to take. “It honestly felt the worst.”
Danet left her surgery cancer-free – but this wouldn’t last long, as she noticed that her eye, which had been radiated, had a black spot on it.
She said: “Three days after my liver surgery, I went to my ocular oncologist and she confirmed even more bad news.
“My eye tumour appeared to be growing again and my right eye had to be removed.
“It was exceptionally scary mostly because I had just had liver cancer treated.
“And the idea that the eye tumour could be growing again was terrifying.”
Three weeks after her liver surgery, on 9 December 2022, she was in the OR again, this time saying goodbye to her right eye for good.
She said: “Leading up to the surgery was really stressful because there was a sense of emergency to get my eye out as quickly as possible.
“It was hard to get surgery scheduled, but the fact that it happened within three weeks of them noticing that there was something changing is actually something of a miracle.
“The day of the surgery I had somewhat of a plan.
“I knew how much music helps to keep me calm and also helps with my anxiety, so I made a playlist for the surgery.
“I requested for the anaesthesiologist to play the song or let me listen to the song in my earphones, that I wanted to listen to [while] they put me to sleep.
“Listening to some of this music in pre-op, I definitely got emotional and started crying.”
Her eye was removed smoothly and a couple of hours later, Danet was back in recovery.
She said: “It just all kind of built up and I realised just how much I have been through in the previous three months and it was like this huge release.
“When I woke up, I had far less pain than I thought, but I was really nervous about throwing up.
“Throwing up with something that can damage the delicate tissue after it’s been reattached to the acrylic implant.”
Danet was learning how to live with just her left eye when her doctor suggested getting a prosthetic eye.
She said: “It just felt right.
“Having something that just felt and looked like me again was important and felt like the least that I could have.
“After radiation surgery, I spent years with an eye that was deteriorating.
“My eyes are one of my favourite features, so this was debilitating and really messed up some of my confidence in myself in photos and in general.
“So I chose to get a prosthesis because having a prosthetic eye and having something that just felt and looked like me again was important and felt like the least that I could have.”
In February 2023, she was fitted with a new eye during an eight-hour process across three days.
She said: “The first day was fitting the eye and the second day was mostly painting and colour matching my iris.
“During the process, I felt really emotional, I wanted the new eye, but it felt strangely alien to begin with.
“The eye does not move a whole lot, but it does give a little bit of a shutter that gives the illusion that the eye is moving some and makes it look alive.
“My ocularist, the person who paints the eye, did an exceptional job.
“He does something special with the pupil where he adds a little bit of red that makes it feel and look a little more alive.
“It is extremely well-made, and I often am told by family members and close friends that they have a hard time remembering which one is the real eye and which one is the fake.”
Danet is now cancer-free once more but has blood tests every three months to check for any inflammation in her body.
She added: “So far all is well and I continue to follow my naturopath oncologist protocol for keeping myself cancer-free.
“The risk of it showing up one day is still high – so we continue as we started this year – aggressively approaching it from a holistic perspective.
“To anyone else diagnosed with cancer, I want to say there are no rules in cancer.
“You’re not going to ‘do it wrong’ by showing up as you are today, take it one day at a time.
“No matter what anyone tells you, you are your own statistic.”
