John Davis CA

Brooke:

Last February 2013 my wife noticed a small raised pink growth mid-line just under the hair line on the back of my neck.  She thought it looked like a harmless blood blister.  My son also thought it looked like a harmless blood blister and offered to lance the growth with a small sharp knife in order to drain the fluid from the growth.

I asked my wife to take a photo of the growth with her smart phone and email the photo to me.  I looked at the photo and it did not look like anything I had seen before.  I googled skin cancer and within a few minutes I found a photo of a nodular melanoma tumor that looked just like mine.  The caption under the photo said that the patient did not survive the melanoma disease.

Understandably I became quite concerned and showed the nodular melanoma tumor photo posted on the web site to my wife.  She thought I was over reacting.  I saw my general practitioner the next day.  He told me that the growth on my neck did not look suspicious to him, but that he would refer me to a dermatologist.  The dermatologist's office offered me an appointment four weeks from the date of the appointment I had with the general practitioner. Because of the information and photos I had seen on the Internet I called my dermatologist's office serveral times every day for four days until I was offered an appointment one week after I had seen my general practitioner.

My dermatologist also told me that the growth on my neck did not look suspicious, but that she would remove it and have it biopsied since I was so concerned that it might be nodular melanoma.  My dermatologist telephoned me one week after she removed the growth from the back of my neck and she breathlessly told me that the growth was a 2.9mm deep nodular melanoma tumor with a high mitotic rate.  She told me not to be fatalistic, that Interferon was available as a treatment and that there are also clinical trials for people who have been diagnosed with nodular melanoma.

I had WLE surgery with 2.5cm margins and a Sentinal Lymph Node biopsy.  The surgeon actually removed five lymph nodes from the back of my head and from the side of my neck because they all had detectable levels of radiation in them.  The WLE skin and all five lymph nodes were negative for melanoma.  I have been staged as 2A, even though my nodular tumor had a high mitotic rate and was 2.9mm deep.

I was not offered Interferon or any other treatment after my surgery.  I did have a brain MRI and a PET-CT scan after my surgery.  The brain MRI and the PET-CT scan did not detect any signs of melanoma.  I am seeing my surgeon and my dermatologist and my oncologist every three months.  My oncologist will be monitoring LDH in my blood, scheduling chest xrays, MRI's and PET-CT scans as appropriate.  The surgeon will be check for signs of lymph node enlargement in my upper body.  My dermatologist will be perform visual skin inspections to look for signs of new primary tumors or for signs of recurrance of cancer cells from the excised primary tumor.

As other people have suggested to you, find the best melanoma specialists that you possibly can.  Nodular melanoma only represents one percent of all skin cancers, but it is responsible for approximately thirty percent of all skin cancer fatalities.

Help your husband do everything possible to strengthen his immune system: diet, exercise, yoga, meditation, talking therapy.  It will also be important for you to do everything possible to keep yourself positive and healthy.

You and your husband have more allies in your battle against melanoma that you can imagine.  Best wishes to you and to your family.

Brooke:

Last February 2013 my wife noticed a small raised pink growth mid-line just under the hair line on the back of my neck.  She thought it looked like a harmless blood blister.  My son also thought it looked like a harmless blood blister and offered to lance the growth with a small sharp knife in order to drain the fluid from the growth.

I asked my wife to take a photo of the growth with her smart phone and email the photo to me.  I looked at the photo and it did not look like anything I had seen before.  I googled skin cancer and within a few minutes I found a photo of a nodular melanoma tumor that looked just like mine.  The caption under the photo said that the patient did not survive the melanoma disease.

Understandably I became quite concerned and showed the nodular melanoma tumor photo posted on the web site to my wife.  She thought I was over reacting.  I saw my general practitioner the next day.  He told me that the growth on my neck did not look suspicious to him, but that he would refer me to a dermatologist.  The dermatologist's office offered me an appointment four weeks from the date of the appointment I had with the general practitioner. Because of the information and photos I had seen on the Internet I called my dermatologist's office serveral times every day for four days until I was offered an appointment one week after I had seen my general practitioner.

My dermatologist also told me that the growth on my neck did not look suspicious, but that she would remove it and have it biopsied since I was so concerned that it might be nodular melanoma.  My dermatologist telephoned me one week after she removed the growth from the back of my neck and she breathlessly told me that the growth was a 2.9mm deep nodular melanoma tumor with a high mitotic rate.  She told me not to be fatalistic, that Interferon was available as a treatment and that there are also clinical trials for people who have been diagnosed with nodular melanoma.

I had WLE surgery with 2.5cm margins and a Sentinal Lymph Node biopsy.  The surgeon actually removed five lymph nodes from the back of my head and from the side of my neck because they all had detectable levels of radiation in them.  The WLE skin and all five lymph nodes were negative for melanoma.  I have been staged as 2A, even though my nodular tumor had a high mitotic rate and was 2.9mm deep.

I was not offered Interferon or any other treatment after my surgery.  I did have a brain MRI and a PET-CT scan after my surgery.  The brain MRI and the PET-CT scan did not detect any signs of melanoma.  I am seeing my surgeon and my dermatologist and my oncologist every three months.  My oncologist will be monitoring LDH in my blood, scheduling chest xrays, MRI's and PET-CT scans as appropriate.  The surgeon will be check for signs of lymph node enlargement in my upper body.  My dermatologist will be perform visual skin inspections to look for signs of new primary tumors or for signs of recurrance of cancer cells from the excised primary tumor.

As other people have suggested to you, find the best melanoma specialists that you possibly can.  Nodular melanoma only represents one percent of all skin cancers, but it is responsible for approximately thirty percent of all skin cancer fatalities.

Help your husband do everything possible to strengthen his immune system: diet, exercise, yoga, meditation, talking therapy.  It will also be important for you to do everything possible to keep yourself positive and healthy.

You and your husband have more allies in your battle against melanoma that you can imagine.  Best wishes to you and to your family.

Brooke:

Last February 2013 my wife noticed a small raised pink growth mid-line just under the hair line on the back of my neck.  She thought it looked like a harmless blood blister.  My son also thought it looked like a harmless blood blister and offered to lance the growth with a small sharp knife in order to drain the fluid from the growth.

I asked my wife to take a photo of the growth with her smart phone and email the photo to me.  I looked at the photo and it did not look like anything I had seen before.  I googled skin cancer and within a few minutes I found a photo of a nodular melanoma tumor that looked just like mine.  The caption under the photo said that the patient did not survive the melanoma disease.

Understandably I became quite concerned and showed the nodular melanoma tumor photo posted on the web site to my wife.  She thought I was over reacting.  I saw my general practitioner the next day.  He told me that the growth on my neck did not look suspicious to him, but that he would refer me to a dermatologist.  The dermatologist's office offered me an appointment four weeks from the date of the appointment I had with the general practitioner. Because of the information and photos I had seen on the Internet I called my dermatologist's office serveral times every day for four days until I was offered an appointment one week after I had seen my general practitioner.

My dermatologist also told me that the growth on my neck did not look suspicious, but that she would remove it and have it biopsied since I was so concerned that it might be nodular melanoma.  My dermatologist telephoned me one week after she removed the growth from the back of my neck and she breathlessly told me that the growth was a 2.9mm deep nodular melanoma tumor with a high mitotic rate.  She told me not to be fatalistic, that Interferon was available as a treatment and that there are also clinical trials for people who have been diagnosed with nodular melanoma.

I had WLE surgery with 2.5cm margins and a Sentinal Lymph Node biopsy.  The surgeon actually removed five lymph nodes from the back of my head and from the side of my neck because they all had detectable levels of radiation in them.  The WLE skin and all five lymph nodes were negative for melanoma.  I have been staged as 2A, even though my nodular tumor had a high mitotic rate and was 2.9mm deep.

I was not offered Interferon or any other treatment after my surgery.  I did have a brain MRI and a PET-CT scan after my surgery.  The brain MRI and the PET-CT scan did not detect any signs of melanoma.  I am seeing my surgeon and my dermatologist and my oncologist every three months.  My oncologist will be monitoring LDH in my blood, scheduling chest xrays, MRI's and PET-CT scans as appropriate.  The surgeon will be check for signs of lymph node enlargement in my upper body.  My dermatologist will be perform visual skin inspections to look for signs of new primary tumors or for signs of recurrance of cancer cells from the excised primary tumor.

As other people have suggested to you, find the best melanoma specialists that you possibly can.  Nodular melanoma only represents one percent of all skin cancers, but it is responsible for approximately thirty percent of all skin cancer fatalities.

Help your husband do everything possible to strengthen his immune system: diet, exercise, yoga, meditation, talking therapy.  It will also be important for you to do everything possible to keep yourself positive and healthy.

You and your husband have more allies in your battle against melanoma that you can imagine.  Best wishes to you and to your family.

Mandi :

Thanks for sharing your experiences with all of us. 

I learned this afternoon that the 4 lymph nodes removed from the left side of my neck last Friday did not contain evidence of nodular melanoma cancer cells.  Also, the skin tissue removed during the WLE procedure last Friday did not contain evidence of nodular melanoma cancer cells.

My diagnosis remains Stage 2A nodular melanoma (2.9 mm deep tumor with high mitotic rate but no ulceration) after the removal of the nodular melanoma tumor from the back of my neck and after the WLE and Sentinel Node Biopsy surgery.

The only reason why I still don't have the nodular melanoma tumor on the back of my neck is that approximately four weeks ago I asked my wife to look at a bump I felt on the back of my neck while showering.  I could not see the bump because it was almost exactly midline just below the hair line on the back of my neck.  My wife said it looked like a blood blister and that it looked harmless.  My 23 year old son who recently took a college class on the Biology of Cancer also said it looked like a harmless blood blister.  I asked my wife to take a photo of the bump and email it to me, which she did.

After i looked at the emailed photo of the growth on the back of my neck I googled skin cancer and melanoma.  In just a few minutes of looking at skin cancer web sites I found a photo of a fatal nodular melanoma that looked just like the photo of the growth on the back of my neck.  The description of the nodular melanoma tumor on the web site said that nodular melanoma often looks like a harmless blood blister to an untrained observer.

After I saw the nodular melanoma tumor on the web site that looked exactly like the tumor on the back of my neck I immediately scheduled an appointment with my general practitioner the next day.  MY GP looked at the tumor and said that it looked harmless, but that he would refer me to a dermatologist.

It took me one week after I saw the GP before I saw the dermatologist.  She also said it looked like a relatively harmless but unusual benign basil cell carcinoma.  She removed the tumor and sent it to a lab for examination.  My dermatologist telephoned me one week after she removed the tumor and told me in a panicked voice that I had been correct and that it was nodular melanoma.

Medical patients who are reasonably educated and who have access to the Internet can and should proactively research information related to unusual symptoms they are experiencing.  Like I said previously, if my wife had not taken a photo of the nodular melanoma tumor on the back of my neck and if I had not found a photo of an extremely similar looking nodular melanoma tumor on the Internet, the tumor would still be growing on the back of my neck and rapidly transitioning from Stage 2A to Stage3 or State 4 nodular melanoma.

Good luck and best wishes to you and to your husband.

Mandi :

Thanks for sharing your experiences with all of us. 

I learned this afternoon that the 4 lymph nodes removed from the left side of my neck last Friday did not contain evidence of nodular melanoma cancer cells.  Also, the skin tissue removed during the WLE procedure last Friday did not contain evidence of nodular melanoma cancer cells.

My diagnosis remains Stage 2A nodular melanoma (2.9 mm deep tumor with high mitotic rate but no ulceration) after the removal of the nodular melanoma tumor from the back of my neck and after the WLE and Sentinel Node Biopsy surgery.

The only reason why I still don't have the nodular melanoma tumor on the back of my neck is that approximately four weeks ago I asked my wife to look at a bump I felt on the back of my neck while showering.  I could not see the bump because it was almost exactly midline just below the hair line on the back of my neck.  My wife said it looked like a blood blister and that it looked harmless.  My 23 year old son who recently took a college class on the Biology of Cancer also said it looked like a harmless blood blister.  I asked my wife to take a photo of the bump and email it to me, which she did.

After i looked at the emailed photo of the growth on the back of my neck I googled skin cancer and melanoma.  In just a few minutes of looking at skin cancer web sites I found a photo of a fatal nodular melanoma that looked just like the photo of the growth on the back of my neck.  The description of the nodular melanoma tumor on the web site said that nodular melanoma often looks like a harmless blood blister to an untrained observer.

After I saw the nodular melanoma tumor on the web site that looked exactly like the tumor on the back of my neck I immediately scheduled an appointment with my general practitioner the next day.  MY GP looked at the tumor and said that it looked harmless, but that he would refer me to a dermatologist.

It took me one week after I saw the GP before I saw the dermatologist.  She also said it looked like a relatively harmless but unusual benign basil cell carcinoma.  She removed the tumor and sent it to a lab for examination.  My dermatologist telephoned me one week after she removed the tumor and told me in a panicked voice that I had been correct and that it was nodular melanoma.

Medical patients who are reasonably educated and who have access to the Internet can and should proactively research information related to unusual symptoms they are experiencing.  Like I said previously, if my wife had not taken a photo of the nodular melanoma tumor on the back of my neck and if I had not found a photo of an extremely similar looking nodular melanoma tumor on the Internet, the tumor would still be growing on the back of my neck and rapidly transitioning from Stage 2A to Stage3 or State 4 nodular melanoma.

Good luck and best wishes to you and to your husband.

Mandi :

Thanks for sharing your experiences with all of us. 

I learned this afternoon that the 4 lymph nodes removed from the left side of my neck last Friday did not contain evidence of nodular melanoma cancer cells.  Also, the skin tissue removed during the WLE procedure last Friday did not contain evidence of nodular melanoma cancer cells.

My diagnosis remains Stage 2A nodular melanoma (2.9 mm deep tumor with high mitotic rate but no ulceration) after the removal of the nodular melanoma tumor from the back of my neck and after the WLE and Sentinel Node Biopsy surgery.

The only reason why I still don't have the nodular melanoma tumor on the back of my neck is that approximately four weeks ago I asked my wife to look at a bump I felt on the back of my neck while showering.  I could not see the bump because it was almost exactly midline just below the hair line on the back of my neck.  My wife said it looked like a blood blister and that it looked harmless.  My 23 year old son who recently took a college class on the Biology of Cancer also said it looked like a harmless blood blister.  I asked my wife to take a photo of the bump and email it to me, which she did.

After i looked at the emailed photo of the growth on the back of my neck I googled skin cancer and melanoma.  In just a few minutes of looking at skin cancer web sites I found a photo of a fatal nodular melanoma that looked just like the photo of the growth on the back of my neck.  The description of the nodular melanoma tumor on the web site said that nodular melanoma often looks like a harmless blood blister to an untrained observer.

After I saw the nodular melanoma tumor on the web site that looked exactly like the tumor on the back of my neck I immediately scheduled an appointment with my general practitioner the next day.  MY GP looked at the tumor and said that it looked harmless, but that he would refer me to a dermatologist.

It took me one week after I saw the GP before I saw the dermatologist.  She also said it looked like a relatively harmless but unusual benign basil cell carcinoma.  She removed the tumor and sent it to a lab for examination.  My dermatologist telephoned me one week after she removed the tumor and told me in a panicked voice that I had been correct and that it was nodular melanoma.

Medical patients who are reasonably educated and who have access to the Internet can and should proactively research information related to unusual symptoms they are experiencing.  Like I said previously, if my wife had not taken a photo of the nodular melanoma tumor on the back of my neck and if I had not found a photo of an extremely similar looking nodular melanoma tumor on the Internet, the tumor would still be growing on the back of my neck and rapidly transitioning from Stage 2A to Stage3 or State 4 nodular melanoma.

Good luck and best wishes to you and to your husband.

I was diagnosed with Stage 2A nodular melanoma two weeks ago after my dermatologist removed what looked like a blood blister from the back of my neck.  I am having wide area excision surgery in two days to remove a 2 cm margin of skin around the original nodular melanoma tumor location.

Your experience with your doctors not being familiar with nodular melanoma is common. 

Approximately two months ago I noticed a bump on the back of my neck that seemed unfamilar.  I am 61 and I have "skin tags" and other benign erratic skin growths on my chest and back.  After feeling the bump enlarging I asked my wife to look at the bump approximately three weeks ago.  She said it looked like a harmless blood blister, perhaps from an infected hair follicle or sweat gland.  I asked her to take a photo of the bump with her smart phone.  She took the photo of the bump and emailed it to me.  The photo of  the bump is my profile photo.

I looked at the photo and out of general curiousity I "googled" melanoma.  In a couple of minutes I was staring at an online photo of nodular melanoma that looked exactly like the photo that my wife took of the bump on the back of my neck.  I showed the online photo of nodular melanoma to my wife and she was very skeptical that my bump could be a life threatening nodular melanoma tumor.  It was only 0.25 inches in diameter and looked like a harmless blood blister.

I was concerned enough about the similarity of the photo of nodular melanoma that I saw on the Internet to the photo of the bump on the back of my neck that I saw my general practitioner the next day.  I told him about the photo of nodular melanoma that I saw on the Internet.  He told me that he thought the bump was a "blue navus" and was likely not nodular melanoma.  He looked at the bump under a hand held optical magnifying lens and told me that he did see ducting in the bump.

My general practitioner referred me to a dermatologist, who I saw a couple of days after I saw my general practitioner.  My dermatologist discounted my concerns about my bump being nodular melanoma.  She said it was likely an unusual basil cell carcinoma.  My dermatologist removed the bump for biopsy analysis.  She called me one week after she removed the growth on the back of my neck and told me in a panicked voice that I had been justified in my concerns that my "bump" was nodular melanoma.

I have been surprised and disappointed that my general practitioner and my dermatologist appear to have little training and experience that would enable them to recognize nodular melanoma.  One of the reasons that nodular melanoma is only 15% of all melanomas and is over 45% of all fatal melanomas is that too many health care practitioners only use the "A B C D" rules when they screen their patients for skin cancer.    Nodular melanoma can and often does look like a harmless often non pigmented bump that does not trigger concern when doctors are using the "A B C D" skin cancer screening rules.

I was diagnosed with Stage 2A nodular melanoma two weeks ago after my dermatologist removed what looked like a blood blister from the back of my neck.  I am having wide area excision surgery in two days to remove a 2 cm margin of skin around the original nodular melanoma tumor location.

Your experience with your doctors not being familiar with nodular melanoma is common. 

Approximately two months ago I noticed a bump on the back of my neck that seemed unfamilar.  I am 61 and I have "skin tags" and other benign erratic skin growths on my chest and back.  After feeling the bump enlarging I asked my wife to look at the bump approximately three weeks ago.  She said it looked like a harmless blood blister, perhaps from an infected hair follicle or sweat gland.  I asked her to take a photo of the bump with her smart phone.  She took the photo of the bump and emailed it to me.  The photo of  the bump is my profile photo.

I looked at the photo and out of general curiousity I "googled" melanoma.  In a couple of minutes I was staring at an online photo of nodular melanoma that looked exactly like the photo that my wife took of the bump on the back of my neck.  I showed the online photo of nodular melanoma to my wife and she was very skeptical that my bump could be a life threatening nodular melanoma tumor.  It was only 0.25 inches in diameter and looked like a harmless blood blister.

I was concerned enough about the similarity of the photo of nodular melanoma that I saw on the Internet to the photo of the bump on the back of my neck that I saw my general practitioner the next day.  I told him about the photo of nodular melanoma that I saw on the Internet.  He told me that he thought the bump was a "blue navus" and was likely not nodular melanoma.  He looked at the bump under a hand held optical magnifying lens and told me that he did see ducting in the bump.

My general practitioner referred me to a dermatologist, who I saw a couple of days after I saw my general practitioner.  My dermatologist discounted my concerns about my bump being nodular melanoma.  She said it was likely an unusual basil cell carcinoma.  My dermatologist removed the bump for biopsy analysis.  She called me one week after she removed the growth on the back of my neck and told me in a panicked voice that I had been justified in my concerns that my "bump" was nodular melanoma.

I have been surprised and disappointed that my general practitioner and my dermatologist appear to have little training and experience that would enable them to recognize nodular melanoma.  One of the reasons that nodular melanoma is only 15% of all melanomas and is over 45% of all fatal melanomas is that too many health care practitioners only use the "A B C D" rules when they screen their patients for skin cancer.    Nodular melanoma can and often does look like a harmless often non pigmented bump that does not trigger concern when doctors are using the "A B C D" skin cancer screening rules.

I was diagnosed with Stage 2A nodular melanoma two weeks ago after my dermatologist removed what looked like a blood blister from the back of my neck.  I am having wide area excision surgery in two days to remove a 2 cm margin of skin around the original nodular melanoma tumor location.

Your experience with your doctors not being familiar with nodular melanoma is common. 

Approximately two months ago I noticed a bump on the back of my neck that seemed unfamilar.  I am 61 and I have "skin tags" and other benign erratic skin growths on my chest and back.  After feeling the bump enlarging I asked my wife to look at the bump approximately three weeks ago.  She said it looked like a harmless blood blister, perhaps from an infected hair follicle or sweat gland.  I asked her to take a photo of the bump with her smart phone.  She took the photo of the bump and emailed it to me.  The photo of  the bump is my profile photo.

I looked at the photo and out of general curiousity I "googled" melanoma.  In a couple of minutes I was staring at an online photo of nodular melanoma that looked exactly like the photo that my wife took of the bump on the back of my neck.  I showed the online photo of nodular melanoma to my wife and she was very skeptical that my bump could be a life threatening nodular melanoma tumor.  It was only 0.25 inches in diameter and looked like a harmless blood blister.

I was concerned enough about the similarity of the photo of nodular melanoma that I saw on the Internet to the photo of the bump on the back of my neck that I saw my general practitioner the next day.  I told him about the photo of nodular melanoma that I saw on the Internet.  He told me that he thought the bump was a "blue navus" and was likely not nodular melanoma.  He looked at the bump under a hand held optical magnifying lens and told me that he did see ducting in the bump.

My general practitioner referred me to a dermatologist, who I saw a couple of days after I saw my general practitioner.  My dermatologist discounted my concerns about my bump being nodular melanoma.  She said it was likely an unusual basil cell carcinoma.  My dermatologist removed the bump for biopsy analysis.  She called me one week after she removed the growth on the back of my neck and told me in a panicked voice that I had been justified in my concerns that my "bump" was nodular melanoma.

I have been surprised and disappointed that my general practitioner and my dermatologist appear to have little training and experience that would enable them to recognize nodular melanoma.  One of the reasons that nodular melanoma is only 15% of all melanomas and is over 45% of all fatal melanomas is that too many health care practitioners only use the "A B C D" rules when they screen their patients for skin cancer.    Nodular melanoma can and often does look like a harmless often non pigmented bump that does not trigger concern when doctors are using the "A B C D" skin cancer screening rules.