I would say yes, realistically there is hope. a few years ago it would be alot tougher with your son's condition. The thing with Melanoma is that it is a malignancy for which they have not been able to find any decent treatment for Stage IV cases…such as Erik's. This has changed over the last few years though as they have finally started to make what appears to be real progress in treatment of Stage IV Melanoma. Ipiulimubab and B-raf are the 2 latest buzzes. In my opinion, the thing you MUST do is GET YOUR SON TO A MAJOR MELANOMA CENTER….they are the ones who understand this disease and lead the research I'm talking about. DO NOT settle for anything less than a specialist. My impression in dealing with this disease on and off for 10 years is that many 'every-day-general-hospitals' who don't see Melanoma cases everyday are really pretty clueless and will do more harm than good….they'll say something like.."well there's nothing to be done ..sorry…good luck "" stay away from these places from the get-go. The other thing they might do is start you off with either the wrong treatment or the old treatments from the past that don't work. Either way, wasting time and limiting the ability to get the best results from the correct treatment options. So, it's important to get it right from the get-go because the other thing about Melanome is that you don't get alot of 2nd chances if you mess up in the treatments used. If you want to talk more about my history or why I'm such a maniac in my convictions on this, feel free to email me. hope this helps. Peter
