Melanoma Awareness Month

After my first surgery my mom and sisters thought it would be nice to send me flowers in the color of the melanoma ribbon.  That is until they learned it was black.  Not the most uplifiting color choice for cancer or flowers for that matter.  :)

May is Melanoma Awareness month.  I don't know whether to find that ironic or appropriate since this month I learned that my melanoma cancer did indeed spread to my lymph nodes.

I received my news on Monday and today I met with my oncologist to discuss where to go from here.   My doctor was extremely positive.  She said that the cancer they found was so minuscule that it wouldn't have been detected unless they did that extensive pathology.  She said that due to its size she does not think it had spread to other organs yet.  However just one cancer cell can multiply and so she highly recommended that I have all the lymph nodes under my left arm removed (between 30-40 nodes!) to clean that area of any trace of cancer.

I have stage 3Ta melanoma cancer for all my medical savvy friends.

I go in for surgery May 18.  I will need to spend the night this time and have a drainage under my arm for 3-4 weeks.  She made the comment "ya know how bad your underarm swelled up with removing just 3 nodes?  Imagine what it could do if you remove 30!"  So that won't be fun, but it definitely beats the alternative.

After the surgery I will go in every 4 months for the next 5 years for body scans and/or ultrasounds to make sure the cancer hasn't come back or spread.

At the end of meeting with my doctor she said very melancholy that she now had to go tell another 30 year old who was scheduled for surgery, that her cancer has spread and that she is now inoperable (the patient had sarcoma a more rare form of cancer).  A few minutes later I heard the most heart wrenching wale coming from the room next door along with her crying, "I'm dying!"  I burst into tears.  I don't think I've ever heard anything so horrible and sad in my entire life.  I saw her in the waiting room (she was easy to pick out due to the fact that everyone else in the waiting room was over 80).  She had her daughter with her who was about 4 or 5 years old along with her young husband.  I can't talk about it without crying.  I will never forget her cries.