skfitz

I’m a cancer wife. My husband Jason was first diagnosed with Stage 3 melanoma in 2013. The primary site was on his lower back and it had spread to his lymph nodes. He had surgery on his back and had the lymph nodes under his right arm removed. He suffers from lymphoma now as a result but has managed to control it with diet. He had a recurrence in 2015 with a spot on his back, very near the original. Another surgery to remove it all and no additional treatment because the scans looked good.

In March 2018 he found a spot on his face and shin that looked suspicious. Sure enough it was melanoma and it was now everywhere – lungs, bone, several spots on the skin, heart and a small MET in his brain. It was devastating as he was only 41 at the time with two young boys (my stepsons). He was BRAF positive so they put him in a clinical trial to test Immunotherapy and targeted therapy. He tried the Ipi/Nivo combo first and it failed. Everything grew and spread and he was hospitalized several times over from side effects. Thank God for the targeted therapy that followed. The Dabrafeinb/Trametinib combo shrank his tumors immediately. Within days we saw two of his golf ball sized tumors shrink.

He now remains on that combo (Feb 2019) and his most recent scans show only one remaining tumor. He’ll be getting radiation on that tumor this month and then hopefully will continue to have success on the combo for as long as possible. His side effects have been brutal so we’ve started to employ intermittent dosing and he’s tolerating it much better. He’s been on prednisone for 8 months, as much as 30mg at times and as low as 15mg. We also use lots of supplements such as Turmeric, Vitamin D, CoQ10, Calcium, Vitamin C, and CBD oil.