A mum who thought her headaches were just down to having 'poor vision' says a routine eye test 'saved her life' - as it revealed she had a 'ticking-time bomb' tumour. Karly Cox visited Specsavers Midsomer Norton earlier this year for a routine appointment where what at first appeared to be a 'shadow' was spotted on her left eye.
The mum-of-four said a concerned optometrist referred her to Bristol Eye Hospital, where she was told she had ocular melanoma - an eye cancer that develops from pigment-producing cells. The 33-year-old started radiotherapy last month at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and will return in August for scans which will reveal if she's in the all-clear.
But the full-time-mum has since lost her vision in her left eye and claims that simple everyday tasks, like doing her make-up, have been made far trickier since having the treatment. Now two weeks post-procedure, Karly is hopeful that her vision will eventually improve and is keen to raise awareness of the importance of having routine eye tests given her tumour was spotted in the 'nick of time'.
Specsavers optometrist Kaye Bradley said that it's 'vital' to see an optometrist if you have any changes in your vision and that the Optical Coherence Tomography scan can help diagnose many eye conditions, as well as help make urgent hospitals when necessary.
Karly, of Radstock, Somerset, said: "Having that eye test pretty much saved my life. You have an eye test every couple of years and if I'd left it and if it was ocular melanoma because they've treated it as that because it was too small to biopsy and it was presenting as that, it would have spread to my liver.
"I just want people to be aware to get their eyes tested because it's really important. Make sure that when you go and get your eyes tested, that you have that extra test because if I didn't have it, then I wouldn't have even known and it would have been a lot worse because I would have lost my eye. I definitely caught it just in the nick of time and they told me I was lucky because usually people my age don't get it, it's usually 65 and over."
Karly, who has been wearing glasses since the age of three, has routine eye tests and had the Optical Coherence Tomography scan during her appointment last month. Karly said: "They offered me the extra health eye check and I went with it. She brought up the pictures on the screen and at first we thought it was just a shadow.
"It wasn't until we looked at it closely and she was like 'oh, it's not a shadow' she wasn't too sure what it was and she was really concerned so she said the best thing for me to do was to go to Bristol Eye Hospital. I went and had loads of different eye tests and they sent me up for a CT scan and said that they thought I had ocular melanoma. But at this point, I didn't know what it was. Then he started talking about radiotherapy and when he said 'radiotherapy' I thought 'oh, that's cancer'."
The mum was then referred to Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust where she stayed for three days to have her radioactive plaque treatment. During the procedure a small metal disc was placed onto the surface of her eyeball over her tumour which gives out radioactive energy, with most of it directed inwards towards the tumour.
Karly said: "At first, it [receiving diagnosis] didn't really click. The impact of it hasn't really hit me until now I can't see, now it's more upsetting for me because I can't see anything. My vision is so blurry now, I can't see out of my eye at all. If I look to the left it's just black. They did say that my eyesight would slowly come back and would slowly deteriorate. It all depends on how my body reacts to the radiotherapy.
"Every day is different for me. Every day I wake up and I see something different - it might be blurry, it might be fuzzy or I might have double vision. I never know what I'm going to wake up to. I'm hoping that I'll wake up one morning and my vision's a bit better, enough so I can see."
Karly, who's 'still coming to terms' with her impaired vision, said her eye is currently red and sore and that she won't know until a couple of months how much vision she's lost. Karly said: "I just want to go back and do normal things again. I haven't been out shopping on my own. I'm too worried and get really anxious because I can't see on my left side if someone walks by the side of me.
"Even just little things, like doing my make-up, are really hard because I can't see. I can't draw my eyebrows on because I can't see and get a lot of double vision so can't really see and do things how I did before.
"I have been hiding my face and put my hair right over it so you can't see that side just because it's easier. Looking back now, I've always suffered from really bad headaches and they're one of the symptoms.
"I noticed at Christmas that I kept getting rings around lights and kept seeing floaty things. But it wasn't enough for me to be concerned and think there was something wrong with my eye. I just thought they were down to my vision, I didn't think for a second it would be what it was."
A report issued by Specsavers last year revealed that there was a 4.3million drop in the number of eye tests delivered in 2020, a 23% decline compared to tests administered in 2019. And that an estimated 2,986 people have lost vision due to delayed identification and treatment of eye disease, with some experiencing severe sight loss and blindness
Kaye Bradley, optometrist at Specsavers Midsomer Norton, said: "We really appreciate Karly coming forward and highlighting just how important regular eye examinations are. It’s vital that you see an optometrist if you note any changes in your vision. The Optical Coherence Tomography helps us to view the health of your eyes in greater detail, it allows us to see what’s going on beneath the surface of the eye. Many people don’t realise the capabilities of the equipment we have in store with the OCT, coupled with the experience of the team, we are able to help diagnose many eye conditions, as well as make urgent referrals to specialist hospitals when necessary."
