| Bio |
Currently I’m living in Austin, TX with my wife and 2 yr old son Hugo.
My melanoma history started in Dec ’09 when hairdresser accidentally cut the mole on back of my head. I had it checked in Jan ’10 when Dr. J. Zaladonis in Bethlehem, PA told me I was fine: “just a cosmetic thing”. In July ’10 I got second opinion from doctor in Slovakia (my birth country) and was diagnosed with malignant melanoma. Tumor on back of my head was 9mm in diameter. At that point I contacted MSKCC in NYC and short after they removed scalp (4″ diameter) from my head. They also found lymph node with 0.5mm tumor near the mole location so they decided to perform neck dissection (81 lymph nodes on the right side of the neck).
All my checkups were fine for about a year and then in Aug ’11 I discovered lump in left armpit. PET, CT & MRI confirmed metastatic melanoma and my doctor recommended removal; no treatment at that point. 6 week follow-up CT scan was fine but the one in Jan ’12 was not.
Melanoma spread to liver where they found 4 tumors of size 7 to 12mm.
Right now I’m discusing my treatment options with Dr. Nicholas Papadopoulos at MD Anderson.
He recommended folowing treatment plan:
1. Clinical trial high dose IL-2 with MAGE-3 vaccine
2. At the same time they will try to harvest TILs for TIL cell trial
3. If 1 & 2 don’t work then Ipilimumab
4. If all above fails then go with good old chemo elixir
That’s my melanoma history in a nutshell. I’ll post updates when I make a decision on the treatments and then the progress.
|
