Today I met with my Imerman Angels buddy (who I'll use a pseudonym for), Bill, for the first time. Like me, Bill was diagnosed with his chorodial melanoma under the age of 40, which makes us unusual. Bill had his affected eye enucleated (removed) due to the tumor size so he didn't go through the same radiation treatment that I did, but nonetheless we shared very similar experiences. Both of our stories began with slight to moderate visual changes which just seemed annoying at first since we were both working very hard when this all took place. Fortunately for Bill, his optometrist spotted his tumor immediately and rang the alarm (and didn't bungle around like my original opthamologists in Chicago). I was surprised to learn from Bill that the enucleation process wasn't as terrible as I thought it might have been. In fact, he said he could have been back to work in just six days, but of course he took off longer as A) you never want to push your boundaries on these things and B) the psychological impact is immense and takes time to process. Much of our conversation then focused on the pyschological impact of our condition. Chorodial melanoma is a bit of an orphaned cancer at about a 6 per 1,000,000 incidence. Most people don't even know that cancers can occur in the eye. Public awareness is near zilch which complicates both realizing you have it and explaining you have it. In my case, I tell people I had it treated with radiation. In Bill's case, he says he had his eye removed. The general reaction is usually "So things are fine now?" or "So it's cured?" Unfortunately, as you, the educated reader, probably know, cancer isn't that simple. No one is every fully "cured." It's just that the longer you go without a recurrence or metastatic (spreading) occurrence, the further out you get on the bell curve toward it being unlikely that the cancer reappears locally or remotely. (Five and fifteen year marks are key for chorodial melanoma.) We both have also noted one other thing which is that people often ask a lot of questions about our vision and very few questions about the cancer. I don't think this is just people being polite or feeling uncomfortable. I think if it were another form of cancer the questions would center around the cancer. It's not that vision isn't important (it is--believe me, Bill and I are both very protective of our good eyes), it's just that, well, vision comes second to being alive. It was great meeting Bill and his story is inspiring to me. He's got a wife, a kid, a high-powered job and he's kicking cancer's butt. I thank Imerman Angels immensely for the opportunity to be paired with him. One other side note. I've noticied Imerman isn't really fully technologically enabled. I think it would be useful if all members could have a blog and Imerman became this powerful network of connected blogs. Imerman could also curate and feature the stories. If the blogs did well perhaps it could be like the TripAdvisor of cancer blogs where the content becomes highly ranked in Google and useful resources for anyone searching for a specific cancer-type. This could add a much needed human element and complement to all those Wikipedia and WebMD search results found by recently diagnosed patients and family members. (I am thinking my buddy Sachin's company Posterous.com would be a good match.)