Eye test detects tumour that ‘couldn’t get much bigger’
On a Sunday morning, Stephanie Carr had a routine eye test. Less than 12 hours later she learned she had a tumour on her brain.
The 32-year-old had been ‘‘pretty slack’’ at getting her eyes checked, and her glasses were old and a bit ‘‘shoddy’’ – so she booked in to see an optometrist.
In the two months prior, the Auckland woman had been getting some blurred vision around the edges of her eyes that blinking wouldn’t alleviate. She thought she was just tired, so wasn’t too concerned.
On May 29, a scan was taken of her eyes at Specsavers Massey. From the jump, optometrist Rukshani Wickramasinghe had ‘‘alarm bells in my head’’.
Between Carr’s scans, headaches and visual disturbances, Wickramasinghe knew it was ‘‘something quite severe’’.
A slit-lamp examination to look inside the eye showed her optic nerve was swollen and raised, and there was bleeding.
Wickramasinghe said Carr had papilloedema: increased pressure on the nerve, either from the brain or cerebrospinal fluid (liquid around the brain and spinal cord).
She rushed Carr to Greenlane Hospital, where more tests were carried out, before a CT scan at Auckland City Hospital.
The hospital was ‘‘very busy’’, and it was about 8pm before a doctor spoke to Carr and partner Deb about the results.
Carr had a tumour on the front left side of her brain. She would need to be admitted, and get an MRI for a better understanding of what they were dealing with.
‘‘It was surreal. It felt like it wasn’t happening to me,’’ Carr said.
‘‘In the morning I was fine, and in the evening I had a brain tumour.’’
Carr had a meningioma: the most common type of head tumour. Most grow very slowly, often over years.
Doctors believe hers had been growing since childhood – to a point it ‘‘couldn’t get much bigger’’.
‘‘It was a matter of months before could’ve either lost my sight, or died.’’
Within days, Carr underwent a 121⁄ hour surgery, where surgeons cut her skull open from the top of her head to the middle of her left ear.
Meningiomas can be ‘‘sticky’’, and surgeons had to leave a very small piece of the tumour behind, as it was connected to the main artery in the brain, she said.
‘‘Luckily’’ the tumour wasn’t cancerous. She was in hospital for nine days. The first weeks were ‘‘pretty tough’’ – even walking up and down stairs was draining.
She was off work, as an estimator for a cladding company, for four weeks, and has been unable to drive for six months.
But Carr said she had bounced back really fast and was feeling ‘‘better than normal’’, with her ‘‘whole life ahead of me now – and a new quality of life too’’.
She wanted people to know that eye tests can help with ‘‘a lot more than just your eyes’’, and for people to not assume an eye issue is insignificant, or will just go away.
Carr said the appointment ‘‘saved my life’’ – and has made the ‘‘should’ve gone to Specsavers’’ slogan a running joke in her family.
Wickramasinghe said 90% of vision loss in Aotearoa could be prevented or treated if detected early.