The squeaky wheel gets the grease. #uronenamillion

In order to get the rest of Judy's story out a little faster,  I will be doing even less spelling and grammar checking.  Once again I am sorry.  I will go back later and fix as much as I can.  Judy's surgery is tomorrow and I would like to finish the story before she goes in for brain surgery.

So Judy is picking up her new glasses that she is thrilled to death to get.  I am of course being VERY sarcastic.  She does not want to have to wear prisms for the rest of her life.

They check  her for the fit to make sure they fit her  right and tell her it probably it not safe to start in the middle of the day wearing the new glasses especially new prisms glasses.  It best to start with new fresh morning eyes.  So she waited till morning to try her new glasses.

It was Saturday morning,  probably the best time for her to try out her new glass, no pressure from work, she did not have to drive, she could just set at home and try them out.  She put them on and was hoping for instant improvement.  But her vision was worse.

She was still having double vision,  and now she was looking through some stupid prism glasses.   What could be worse?

She decided to give them a couple of days to see if maybe she just need to let her eyes adjust to the new type of glasses.   But each day she would have to take them off half way through and change to her old prescription just so she could see, and to top it off the prisms were giving her migraine headaches each day, even worse then before.

After five or days of TRYING to get used to them she could not take it any more.  She called back the doctor and said this  is not  working. She stopped wearing the glass and started  wearing an eye patch so she could see with. At least with one eye covered she was not  seeing two of everything.  It worked. It even helped with the headaches a little.

Judy needed to be persistent with her doctors office in order to get them to hear what was going on. The doctor prescribe something for Judy’s headaches thinking maybe the migraine headaches were the source of her double vision.  She was having a lot of migraine headaches lately, so it was worth a try.

After a week of taking the new medicine as directed,  it was not helping.   It did not help the headaches or the double vision.  We were back to square one. Now what.

Our story is just getting started  it starts to be a little frustrating.  Ok so Its been that way from the beginning.     Follow along with our story, follow along with our journey. #uronenamillion

Eye doctor dilemma. #uronenamillion

So Judy is in the doctor's office now, and being checked to see if she has BELL'S PALSY. The good news? She does not have bells palsy. The doctor seems to think she has something called 4th nerve palsy. It's a condition where the patient's eye does something called down gazing. Another sign of 4th nerve palsy is the patient will tend to close one eye while reading.

Well our family doctors office sent Judy to another eye doctor who specializes in retina eye care in our hometown and as luck would have it she could get an appointment the next day, but it would have to be with the assistant.  The main doctor did however did agree to poke his head in during the appointment.  Something is better than nothing, she just wanted to stop seeing double.

The assistant did their assignment and decided Judy needed not just one but two prisms in her glasses -3.0. That would fix her double vision she was told. Judy got a new glasses prescription, this time with prisms was sent on her way.


So now she has two different prescriptions for glasses both with prisms. One from the first eye doctor at shopko, and this last doctor. She was not happy about wearing prisms, but if it helps she thought she  would give it try. 

Judy managed to contact shopko before they processed her first prescription so she told them about the to new one she had just received,  thinking maybe they could just switch them out. NOT QUITE. The first eye doctor did not agree with the second eye doctors assessment. The first eye doctor refused to make the new doctor’s order. “I stand behind my assessment”, the first eye doctor said.  So now it’s doctor against doctor, and who is right and who is wrong.  But what about Judy's vision.


Judy finally got Shopko to agree that bringing in the new prescription was no different than bringing in a prescription from any other eye doctor, they do it all the time.  So why are they making  an exception this time?  Even though we knew it was because the doctor had their feeling hurt.


Judy Received her new glasses after waiting about a week and a half and was excited about finally getting some much needed relief, even though she was not thrilled about having PRISMS in her glasses.     Follow along with our story, follow along with our journey. #uronenamillion

Double vision #URONENAMILLION

Let me start off by telling you who I am. My name is Joe Gabriel.  I live in Iowa with my wife Judy. We have 2 grown daughters, a son-in-law and three grandchildren.  Oh ya and soon to be son-in-law who is marrying our youngest daughter.

I am not a writer. You can probably tell that already after reading the first couple of sentences of my post. So let me apologize for the grammar and spelling right from the beginning.

Our journey starts about a two months ago in one of our local movie theaters. The movie was just about to start when my wife leaned over to me and asked, "is the screen out of focus to you?"

I replied "no, it looked fine, why?" Judy then followed with, "it just looks like it is out of focus." Little did we know that moment was going to be the turning point for the rest of our lives.

Judy excused herself to go to the restroom, but it was not until after the movie that I knew the real reason.

When she went to rest room she looked into the mirror only to see two of herself starring back, so she went  outside,  she saw two moons, two lamp posts, two of everything.  It was DOUBLE VISION.

She was not seeing a blurry screen. Judy was seeing two of every thing on the screen.  The only way she could stop the double vision, was to cover one eye. So that is what she did for the entire movie.

She knew something was not right, but though to herself, maybe she was getting a migraine headache.  She decided to try to tought out the movie so she would not disappoint me.  It just goes show how sacrificial she is.

So that was the start of when Judy started to realize something was not right. It also is the start of our Journey.  Lots more to come!  Follow along with our story, follow along with our journey. #uronenamillion

•  Find me on Twitter at  #uronenamillion

One In a million Chordoma

#uronenamillion

Let me start off by telling you who I am. My name  is Joe Gabriel.  I live in Iowa with my wife Judy. We have two grown daughters, a son-in-law and three grandchildren.  Oh ya and soon to be son-in-law to our youngest daughter.

My wife Judy has been diagnosed with a Chordoma tumor on her clavicle. Sounds like a lot of big scary words and it definitely  don't sound good.  We'll your right.  

Chordomas are very rare.  A Chordoma is primarily found on the base of the skull or the lower spine.   This is an example how rare they are. When my wife went to her family doctor for the first time after finding out about her chordoma, her doctor had to look it up on Google. We seen about 6 times so far.

1 in 1 million  people  are  diagnosed with a Chordoma every year. That's around 300 Americans annually.  That's where I came up with #uronenamillion.

The first time I read that stistic I looked at my wife and said to her see now I know you are one in a million.  It's not a laughing matter,  but I always seem be adding humor when it not needed, you Can ask Judy about that, she will agree. 

What we know so far

We know it can't be completely removed and it will someday return.   She also has a chance this tumor could spread to other areas.  So the goal is to remove as much as possible with surgery.  The surgery happens in a week.  After the surgery they will most likely be using some sort of radiation therapy to contain and shrink what is left.

So that is where are today. Pre-op junk.  I will be telling you the entire story in the next couple of days my hope is to have her story told by the time surgery get here.   Follow along with our story, follow along with our journey. #uronenamillion