Over the years, Dr. Shmorhun has saved our family from a variety of mini-disasters, like my herniated disc and the clot in my husband’s subclavian vein that led to the removal of two of his ribs. He was with us when I had my first bout with cancer, a battle that cost me my left breast. Then, in late 2011, he found a melanoma on the skin behind my ear that my dermatologist had missed. My first husband died of melanoma, so I was terrified by the diagnosis, but Dr. Shmorhun saw us through that storm too. Since then, I’ve allowed myself to become optimistic about my health, and my family has followed my lead. Until today, I was sure that the worst was over. After a painful operation and radiation treatment that beat the melanoma into remission, I was warned by the oncologists that there was a 30 percent chance it would return. But I shrugged off their words. No way, I thought. It’s never coming back.
But as I sit before Dr. Shmorhun and describe my vision problem, my confidence wavers.
“It is the eye, it must be the eye,” I tell him. The problem can’t be with my brain.
As he examines me, I start to speak faster. “I’m taking doxycycline, which can cause this side effect,” I blurt. “I Googled it.”
Hurry up, I think, I have no time to waste! I’m leaving tomorrow morning for my wonderful trip. Let’s get this over with, and fast.
Dr. Shmorhun continues to check my vision, my eyes, my neurological responses. I notice his serious expression, his unsmiling face. His usual composure is cracking.
“Why worry?” I reassure him. “Things like this can happen.”
“I don’t think it’s your eye,” he says.
I freeze. I know that if it’s not the eye, it’s the brain.
“You can’t see anything on your lower-right quadrant with both eyes open, nor can you see that area with either your left or right eye alone,” he says. “But your eyes see perfectly well anywhere else. This suggests that your eyes and optic nerves are probably fine but the brain regions that process visual information from your lower right field are experiencing some trouble. I want you to see an ophthalmologist immediately.” He leaves the room to call her.
I am terrified.
We need our brains, as well as our eyes, in order to see. The eyes pick up visual information in the world, and the optic nerves send it to the occipital lobe, or visual cortex—the part of the brain where it is processed. If there’s a problem in your left eye, you won’t be able to see on the left. But if there’s a problem in an area of the visual cortex in your brain, neither eye will be able to see a particular visual field—which is the very problem I’m having.
I call Mirek and Kasia and tell them I’m at Dr. Shmorhun’s office because I can’t see things in the lower-right side of my visual field. Kasia is clearly concerned but I insist it’s not a big deal. I say I’ll call again after I talk to the ophthalmologist.
The ophthalmologist, Dr. Julie F. Leigh, is right across the street. She checks my vision, dilates my pupils, shines a strong bluish light deep into my eyes. Her pretty young face is close to mine across the slit lamp, her glittering earrings almost touching my ears and cheeks. I like how she smells, a delicate fragrance of perfume. She finds nothing wrong with my optic nerves or retinas, no cataracts. But when she leans back, her smile has disappeared and her eyes are sad.
“I am afraid it’s in your brain,” she says. “It must be something in your occipital cortex. We need to do more tests.”
I run back across the street. Dr. Shmorhun’s office is now closed but he’s waiting for me in the darkened reception area along with Mirek, who’s just arrived.
Mirek’s quiet presence always calms me. Though he was stricken with polio at eighteen months of age and still walks with a significant limp—the polio vaccine wasn’t available in Poland until the late 1950s, a few years after it came out in the United States—he is an excellent cyclist with strong muscles in his arms and in his dominant leg. He’s an intellectual, unfailingly kind and warm, with a wry but gentle sense of humor. I have a strong personality, loud and laughing and stubborn about my opinions, but Mirek loves me just as I am and is always supportive of whatever I want to do.
I look to him for comfort now, even as I stand defiantly apart from him and Dr. Shmorhun in the dark waiting area. My brave exterior is beginning to crumble.
“We have to do an MRI of your brain as soon as possible,” Dr. Shmorhun says.
“But I’m leaving tomorrow morning! I have plane tickets!” I respond. “I’m the conference president, I have to go!” The words pour out in a terrified stream. “I have to go, I have to ski, there will be no conference without me, I am essential!” I repeat the same points over and over, like a child desperately trying to convince her parents to let her stay up past her bedtime.
Dr. Shmorhun is usually subdued but today he is very firm. “I can’t let you go anywhere before we figure this out,” he says. “It could be dangerous to travel. We need to do an MRI immediately. You need to find any place that can take you tomorrow morning.” Mirek sides with him.
I continue to argue for an hour—I’m not one to give up easily on what I want. But they won’t budge, and I finally give in.
Okay, I tell myself. I will do the MRI and delay my trip by one day, just to
