So…..my goshdang body managed to produce one of the largest melanomas any of the doctors handling my case and any of the doctors they've consulted have ever seen. The pathologist determined it is at least 1.5mm thick, and the margins yesterday were not clear, so they had to cut much more out today, which will be tested itself, and that will determine whether they cut more out or not.
Because of the thickness being much more than originally thought, we can't do the skin graft yet, because we need to do a sentinal lymph node biopsy as soon as possible, which will be next week. That procedure will determine whether or not the cancer has spread to my lymph nodes. Once that has been done, and once the pathologist says we cut it all out successfully, then we can do the graft from my thigh to my head. Until then, it'll be an open wound to the muscle layer that I have to keep covered with a head wrap, which is annoying.
So today did not at all go as planned. The pathologist had to spend 4 hours looking at the slides from the excised lesion because it's so goshdang big. Interestingly, despite the three previous biopsies from July 2nd and June 14th finding no ulceration or mitosis or regression, the whole lesion excision showed all three, which means it's more aggressive than we had originally thought. Because of those new findings, my new stage is this:
Malignant Amelanotic Melanoma stage T2b.
So that's the update. Frick cancer.
I'll update again once I have the complete path report.
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