Amy Cottingham, 29, lost her eye to ocular melanoma weeks after first noticing a slight blur in her vision. She was diagnosed in July and required an enucleation, the surgical removal of the eye, because of the tumour's size.
Cottingham got engaged to her fiancé Finlay in April during a trip to Nepal, where she felt healthy and happy. She climbed Gokyo Ri, a 5,400-metre mountain, during that trip. Only 750 people are diagnosed with this rare cancer in the UK each year, according to Ocular Melanoma UK.
Diagnosis and Treatment
In May, while applying false eyelashes for a wedding, Cottingham noticed that with only her left eye open, her vision was slightly blurry. She booked an optician appointment for July, expecting the worst news to be that she needed glasses. The optician found macular thickening with intraretinal cysts, which is unusual for someone her age, as it is typically associated with people aged 60 or 70 and older.
After the optician consulted a colleague, Cottingham was advised to see her GP for a blood test and was referred to the ophthalmology department at King's Hospital, with an appointment scheduled for mid-September. However, when a "crescent shadow" appeared over her left eye, her partner's mother, a nurse, urged her to attend eye casualty instead of waiting. The doctor suggested there could be a tumour in her eye.
Surgery and Recovery
Her ocular melanoma diagnosis was confirmed at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London on July 23. The oncologist said the only treatment option was to remove the whole eye. Originally scheduled for surgery on August 24, Cottingham pushed for an earlier date and had the enucleation 14 days earlier at Moorfields.
Since the tumour was contained to her eye, she did not need radiation treatment, and follow-up scans have found no further evidence of the disease so far. Six weeks after surgery, she was given a prosthetic eye, which she described as looking more like a hard-fit contact lens than a whole eyeball.
Raising Awareness
Cottingham has started training for the Brighton Marathon on April 4 next year, raising money and awareness for Ocular Melanoma UK. She noted that the cancer is under-researched and underfunded because fewer people are affected. She emphasised the importance of regular eye tests every two years, as ocular melanoma does not always cause symptoms, and urged others to advocate for themselves if they feel something is wrong.
