DeniseK

I’m a blonde haired green eyed 45 year old woman that has been sunburned several times in my life. In my day we lubed our bodies with baby oil and prayed to the sun gods to bring it on!! Two years ago I got sunburned really bad. A mole I had on my chest started to itch. A month or so later it started to grow. It grew and grew and became ulcerated. I didn’t have medical insurance so I wasn’t able to get it checked until just recently. I wasn’t surprised by the diagnosis of Malignant Melanoma because of the size of the mole/tumor, completely round 2.7 cm! Once diagnosed everythings been happening really fast. Surgery less than a week later! It’s been 2 weeks now since surgery and waiting to return to Dr.’s on June 30th. PET Scan and LDH levels still need to be done. My doctor told me to research clinical trials and treatment options before my next visit. He knows I’ve been pretty well informed by the internet. Anyway I’m high risk because of the size of the tumor. Still not sure if the cancer has spread. My cousins daughter died at age 24 of melanoma because after her tumor removal and all clear of sentinal lymph nodes they figured it was gone and did no treatments. The cancer had spread through her blood vessels! This has been the scariest thing in my life! But has also given me a better perspective on what’s really important and I appreciate things more!!
7/9/11 I got PET scan and Brain MRI and they came back clear. I’m really really lucky that I had MM growing on my chest for 2 years and it didn’t spread! Concerns now are that I’m high risk for recurrence so I’m going to San Fancisco to the Northern California Melanoma Center to decide what treatment I should do to reduce the chance of recurrence. Still waiting to get appointment for that.