TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -Winning a spot on the New York Yankees’ roster was at the forefront for Jason Johnson. Then the cause of blurred vision in his right eye changed everything just days before spring training began.
An eye doctor saw something he didn’t like. A specialist agreed and sent Johnson to the Wills Eye Institute in Philadelphia, where the problem was confirmed.
The 35-year old pitcher had a small melanoma cancer tumor, and Wills’ staff offered a sobering assessment.
“They’re like, ‘There’s three things we do,”’ Johnson said Saturday. “And I said ‘Yeah, what’s that?”’
Johnson was told: “The first thing is to save your life. Save your life, save your eye, save your vision in that eye in that order.”
“All right, I’m worried to make a baseball team this year, and now I’m worried about my life. It’s kind of scary,” he said.
Johnson was told he had a rare form of cancer that affects at most 2,500 people each year, but that it can have a 98 percent treatment success rate.
ople don’t even notice it. The tumor was actually seeping and like bruised something, so it kind of separated the retina a little bit and caused my vision to get a little blurry. It was lucky, but unlikely.”
The tumor was located at the back, lower part of his retina near the optic nerve. Johnson underwent successful radiation therapy treatment, spending four days at the Philadelphia institute.
“I’m all right,” Johnson said. “It was a shock.”
Johnson has 56-100 record over 255 major league appearances, including 221 starts in a career that started in 1997 with Pittsburgh. He has also pitched for Tampa Bay, Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, Boston, Cincinnati and Los Angeles. He is non-roster invitee this spring, and was in the mix for a bullpen spot.
“He’s in pretty good spirits and doing what he can,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “I’d never heard of anyone having that. It’s scary. Obviously his health is more important. It’s unfortunate that his spring training has started off this way, but it’s something we all have to get through.”
Johnson will be limited to indoor workouts until a week from Monday because doctors want to avoid the risk of infection from the playing field dirt.
Johnson had a bullpen session with Yankees’ pitching coach Dave Eiland in attendance a couple days before seeing the eye doctor.
“I felt great,” Johnson said. “I felt like I’m ready to make the team.”
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