Hi Joan,
Thanks for asking. My father passed away more than a year ago at almost 89 years old, but I still hang around some. He had melanoma under a nail on his big toe, which was "cured" by amputation. No lymph node involvement. A few years later, he was diagnosed with acral lentiginous melanoma on the bottom of his foot — no one noticed because he was a diabetic. After a couple of surgeries, he had metastases up his leg. He had some treatments which probably reduced the extent of the metastases, but they were painful for him. The problem/blessing (depending on how you look at it) was, with mild dementia, he often forgot he had melanoma and couldn't understand why he was being put through the treatments. Ultimately, he ended up in the hospital with blood clots in his legs, allergies to the heparin used to correct that and various other complications. He came home on hospice and passed away a few days later. Melanoma never showed up anywhere outside his leg. For that, I am grateful.
While he was going through treatment, I received lots of advice/encouragement from people on this board, which I really appreciate. I still hang out to keep track of some of those people and see if I can be of any help. My knowledge base is small, because my father's case was unusual in many respects, so what I do is offer people access to journal articles they would otherwise have to pay for. I work at a medical center (UNC, in fact), so I have access. I hate the idea that people with cancer, whose tax dollars have paid for government sponsored research, have to pay $35 or whatever for these articles. Not technically legal, but that's my thing…
Anyway, that's MY story and I'm sticking to it. 😉 Best wishes everyone.
ellen
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