Knock Knock Eye: Sydney Towle's Legacy and the Isolation of Young Adult Cancer

I wanted to start this one off talking about Sydney Towle, a 26 year old TikToker who documented her stage four cholangiocarcinoma diagnosis with so much humor and honesty that it genuinely impacted me, even though I never knew her in real life. Her passing hit hard, and it brought back a lot of what I went through with my own testicular cancer diagnoses at 26 and again at 31. I talk about how isolating it is to get a cancer diagnosis as a young adult, how most of the research and attention goes to kids and older adults, and how organizations like First Descents helped me find my people when I needed them most.

Then I get into some actual eyeball stuff, because that's still what this show is for. I break down a fascinating case out of Ireland, the country's first ever transorbital neuroendoscopic surgery, where surgeons went through the eye socket to remove a meningioma pressing on the orbit. I get into how that surgery works, why the orbit is basically an obstacle course of tiny structures, and why neurosurgery always takes precedence when ophthalmology, ENT, and neurosurgery are all in the room together. I also can't resist going down a history rabbit hole on ice pick lobotomies, which were done through the eye socket, and I even throw in a random fact about the Bayeux Tapestry and a king who allegedly took an arrow straight to the eye.

Takeaways:

• Young adult cancer patients often feel isolated because most cancer research and support resources target children or older adults.
• Organizations like First Descents and Stupid Cancer exist specifically to connect young adults facing cancer with a supportive community.
• Ireland's first transorbital neuroendoscopic surgery used the eye socket as a pathway to remove a brain tumor pressing on the orbit.
• Neurosurgery typically takes precedence in multidisciplinary trauma cases because saving a patient's life comes before preserving their vision.
• Ice pick lobotomies, performed through the eye socket, were still being done as recently as 1960.

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