Hi Everyone,
As many of you know, my Mom was diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma in November of 2013. And 2 years ago today we found out that the radiologist completely missed 3 brain mets. Even with this and everything that's happen she has had a terrific outlook due to how quickly she responded to the treatments AND all the terrific doctors at USC in Los Angeles.
We were there again yesterday and after her 4th infusion of Keytruda and the new CT scans and MRI of her brain we are thrilled that things are stable or still shrinking AND there is nothing new.
HISTORY:
She was misdiagnosed for almost a month after getting the news that she was Stage IV. After seeing 3 melanoma specialists she was also diagnosed with brain mets too. She had gamma knife radiation for 8 or 9 tumors (1 was missed) December 9, 2013 and started Yervoy 4 days later.
Her body "loved" Yervoy as far as the cancer went, but she got colitis pretty bad and only had 3 infusions. She did end up having 17 more brain mets found in April of 2014 and we switched the treating neuro-oncologist and radiation oncologist who had been treating her. (They were sub-par as far as I am concerned and we were lucky my Mom did not have any permanent or detrimental problems due to thier treatment or advice.)
My Mom had just over a year of very good scans and ended up with a reoccurrence and needed a craniotomy in June of this year and another round of gamma knife radiation for 1 new brain met in August.
She started Keytruda in late August of this year and the tumors in her trunk are still getting smaller or are stable. All about the size now of a grain of rice. We are hoping that the Keytruda can boost her immune system enough so that she does not have any further issues with brain mets.
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