In Your Eyes

If you’ve ever felt lonely and isolated as a melanoma patient living at The Hotel Carcinoma, try walking in the shoes of an ocular melanoma (OM) patient. According to the Melanoma Research Foundation’s CURE Ocular Melanoma website, “OM occurs in approximately 6 people per million per year, while invasive cutaneous (skin) melanoma occurs in approximately 1 in 50 people per year”. That’s only about 2000 new OM patients diagnosed each year, and if you’re one of them you very likely don’t know anyone else with the disease.

Just about the only thing OM has in common with its cutaneous ‘cousin’ is that it originates in our pigment cells (melanocytes). OM usually starts in the area of the eye called the uvea. OM doesn’t demonstrate the same genetic mutations as cutaneous melanoma, and has its own distinct set of genetic alterations. It generally doesn’t respond well to chemotherapy, so surgery and radiation are the standard first-line treatments. About 50% of OM patients will develop metastatic disease within 15 years of their original diagnosis, and 90% of metastases involve the liver. Once the liver is involved, OM is current incurable. There are currently no FDA-approved treatments for metastatic OM, and that just has to change. Soon.

Even though I’d already been living at The Hotel Melanoma for several years at the time, I don’t think I’d ever heard of OM until a former colleague was diagnosed with the beast and he reached out to me for support. Sadly, by the time he was diagnosed his OM had already metastasized to his brain and he died within a matter of weeks. Please support the efforts of the Melanoma Research Foundation and other organizations to find a cure.

I haven’t walked in the shoes of an OM patient, so please forgive me if I get this one wrong. But for John, and all who have battled OM, here’s The Hotel Melanoma rendition of Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes”…



Mel, I get so lost, sometimes
Days pass and this emptiness fills my heart
When I want to run away
I drive off in my car
But whichever way I go
I come back to the place you are

All fright instincts, they return
And my brave façade, so soon will burn
Without a noise, without my pride
I scream out from the inside

In my eyes (In my eyes) the fright they treat
(In my eyes) I must compete
(In my eyes) I see the doorway (In my eyes) to a thousand cure drugs
(In my eyes) The resolution (In my eyes) of all the fruitless searches

(In my eyes) Oh, (In my eyes) I see the fright that they treat
(In my eyes, the fright they treat) Oh, (In my eyes) I wanna to see this complete
(In my eyes, the fright they treat) I wanna to end the fright, the beast I see in my eyes

Mel, I don't like to see so much pain
So much wasted and the soul mates keep slipping away
I get so tired of working so hard for our survival
I look to a time past you to keep me still brave and alive

All fright instincts, they return
And my brave façade, so soon will burn
Without a noise, without my pride
I scream out from the inside

In my eyes
(In my eyes)
(In my eyes)
(In my eyes)

In my eyes (In my eyes) the fright they treat
(In my eyes) I must compete
(In my eyes) I see the doorway to a thousand cure drugs
(In my eyes) The resolution (In my eyes) of all the fruitless searches

Oh, I see the fright that they treat
(In me eyes) Oh, (In my eyes) I wanna to see this complete
(In my eyes) I wanna to beat the fright, the beast I see in my eyes (In my eyes)

(In my eyes) (In my eyes) (In my eyes)
(In my eyes)
(In my eyes)
(In my eyes)