Day +664 : “Nothing. I can’t even see anything!”

I am fine today.

“Nothing. I can’t even see anything!”

This was what the eye specialist told me on last Friday when I enquired about the result of the Schirmer’s test. As I mentioned in the earlier posts, Schirmer's test is used to measure the production of tears. Paper strips were inserted into a patient's eyes for 5 minutes. The amount of moisture on the paper was then measured. A normal person should moisten the paper strip at least 10mm in 5 minutes, but unfortunately in my case, nothing was shown on the paper :-(

The result could be bad to the eyes because it might render the cornea unhealthy and thus affecting my vision.

The lack of tears is one of the side effects of bone marrow transplant called graft versus host disease (GVHD). My donor’s immune cells attack the tear glands making them unable to produce tears :-(

In this regard, the answer “Nothing. I can’t even see anything!” becomes a blessing because most likely the same effect will apply to the cancer cells as well. In other words, if similar test is done to measure the cancer cells in my body, the result will also be “Nothing. I can’t even see anything!” :-)

With this argument, I am pretty happy with the result of the Schirmer’s test :-)

See you next post :-)