Some very strange things have been happening to me while undergoing chemotherapy. I mean strange in addition to excessive vomiting ( we seem to have that mostly curbed), hair loss, a strange of sense of taste (it's like I have had a tongue transplant and the taste buds are different, a twisted sense of smell, etc.
These are all things I had fairly regularly heard of associated with chemo. I was not prepared for how it has affected my eyes.
After the first round of chemo I noticed that my eyes had problems focusing. I figured I would be able to happily read my way through a very tall stack of books to keep myself busy as I went through treatment. Buuzzzzzzz - wrong. I can read some, but my focal point doesn't even stay in the same spot. Add that to the general jitteriness I felt in all of my limbs and I just couldn't hold a book still unless there were pillows propped around my arms. Oh well, I didn't really have the attention span to get into a good novel anyway, so I started reading through some of the non-fiction I had waiting in small bursts.
After the second round of chemo, and with all of the new anti-emetics I am on, my eyes are definitely on drugs. My left eye is completely out of whack. From five feet away a person will have four eyes. All of them are slightly out of focus in different degrees. But the strangest thing happened when my husband was driving us home from an athletic event in another town.
You know how headlights and taillights always have kind of a starburst affect at night? That was happening to me, but in a greatly magnified manner. As headlights approached, they were huge chrysanthemum-like burst of intense white lights - almost as if I was seeing a firework explode on the ground right next to me. Many, many pointed star points on the outer rim of the burst. Also, these multiple tips of the burst had very cool colors burning on the edges - blues, purples, greens. Newer, halogen headlights seemed to be more colorful than an older style headlight. Very strange and beautiful. It was happening with the red taillights also, but it was not as intense as the white headlights, and there were no colors on the edges.
I had mentioned the first differences to my oncologist and he said that chemo can affect every single process in your body. He did tell me to not go out and buy glasses, though, because it would very likely be just like hair loss. It will almost certainly come back, but it might not be the same as before chemo. He told me to buy cheaters to read if I want, but don't get prescription lenses, because it will probably change after chemo is done. I also asked my sister who worked for eye doctors for years and years and she said the same thing - could be the chemo, could be the hormones that are changing during that time. Get glasses if you want, but you will likely need a different prescription by the time you are done with treatment.
I have not worn glasses, not even cheaters, my whole life. If I need to get some prescription glasses after treatment is done, I already have my eye on some vintage, cat-eye frames that will hold new lenses.
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