“I had dry eyes and dismissed my symptoms…then I was diagnosed with a six in one million disease”
“Excerpt from the DailyMail.co.uk health article published on October 12, 2025 by Alexa Lardieri, US Deputy Health Editor”
Allison Dashow says people often tell her to play the lottery, and after being diagnosed with a six in 1 million cancer, she agrees. The native New Yorker thought nothing of the ‘intermittent’ pain in her left eye that developed in April 2022 because she was used to having dry eyes. ‘I just thought, probably nothing serious. It’ll probably go away,’ Dashow, 29, told the Daily Mail. Two months later, the 26-year-old had just earned her doctoral degree in psychology and off handedly mentioned her pain to her therapist, who urged her to see a doctor. ‘[My therapist] said “It’s your eye. You should definitely take that seriously.” And what was kind of ironic is that I’m someone who’s always been on top of my medical issues. I’ll go to my appointments, I take my health seriously. ‘I do what I can. But this was the one time in my life that I actually wasn’t taking it seriously. I think because it was so intermittent and it wasn’t that uncomfortable.’
She called her local optometrist looking for an upcoming appointment, but they told her to come in right away after hearing her symptoms. While her doctor said ‘everything looked fine,’ he noted there was fluid buildup behind the retina and referred her to specialist. Dashow told the Daily Mail that the retina doctor performed several scans of her eye, including an ultrasound. ‘The doctor came in, he took a couple looks at my scans, and he said, “This is very interesting. I want to bring in my colleague.” ‘So at that point, I thought: “Oh gosh, I don’t want to be an interesting patient.” So the colleague came in, and they were just grilling me with a bunch of questions about family history and symptoms. ‘And they ended up saying, “The good news is it’s not eye cancer.” And I was like, “Great; I didn’t even know that was something we were considering, but I’m glad to know it isn’t.”
Dashow was initially diagnosed with choroidal neovascularization (CNV), a condition in which abnormal blood vessels grow in the choroid – the layer of tissue underneath the retina. This can damage the retina and lead to vision loss. CNV is typically caused by old age, degeneration of the eye, nearsightedness, complications from diabetes or other retinal diseases – none of which Dashow had. The doctors recommended injectable treatments be started right away, but Dashow sought a second opinion. A week later, she underwent more scans with a new doctor.
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