My melanoma nightmare update.

[fightforfreedom]

Last edited Sun Jan 1, 2023, 12:26 PM - Edit history (1)

Just received my 12th treatment of Keytruda. 6 more to go. Scans are coming back normal. I have to admit I am getting tired of the treatments. The side effects wear you out over time. The winter weather doesn't help that's for sure.

I desperately want to get back to a normal life. I receive a treatment every 3 weeks which make it hard to live a normal life. I have 6 more treatments which means I should be done by early spring. After the final treatment I will get another scan and if it's normal I will have won this battle with Melanoma.

I just went to a new dermatologist and she said the same thing other doctors have said. I had a very unusual type of Melanoma. It did not show itself. She told me if I did not decide to have a small cyst removed from my upper cheek I would have not known the melanoma was there until it was too late. It would have killed me.

If you ever have a cyst doctors will not be concerned about it unless it is very large. My cyst was not cancerous, it just happened to be in the same area the melanoma was. It was small, not getting any larger. I could have ignored it. I did for a while. Luckily I got tired of looking at it and had it removed. After it was removed, that's when the melanoma showed itself. It had been silently growing for a long time, stalking me.

My advice to everyone, if you get a cyst have it removed. It may save your life.

[niyad]

1. Thank you for that excellent, caring advice. May your recovery be complete and

swift.

[MuseRider]

2. Being done with this

in the spring is almost perfect. Rebirth and all. A new you! Plan to sit outside when you can and absorb the renewal of both you and the Mother.

I am so happy for you. So many people, myself included, ignore things far too long. Thank you for another lesson in paying attention.

[fightforfreedom]

5. You read my mind.

When I am done in the spring I plan on sitting outside on my porch having a few drinks. Those drinks are going to taste really good.

There will be one change I will have to make for the rest of my life. I can no longer sit in the sun, but that's OK.

[whathehell]

3. Best to you, fightforfreedom, and thank you

for sharing your story and your important advice.

[PlanetBev]

4. I had an unusual type of melanoma in 2005

It’s called Amelanotic Melanoma, a very aggressive form. I am very fair skinned, so the lesion showed as a red spot with no pigment. I asked my primary care doctor if it was cancer and she said no, it was a rash. Months later, I looked at it under a magnifying glass and saw that it was scaly. I went back to a dermatologist and he didn’t think it was cancer either, but took it out and had it biopsied. When the pathology came back, I almost passed out. When I told my primary that it was melanoma, she was shocked and said “but it didn’t look like melanoma.” Thank goodness it was caught early, at 0.7 depth.

Glad you didn’t blow off that cyst, Fightforfreedom. As in both our cases, you have to be your own advocate. I eagerly look forward to your next report. The best of everything to you in the New Year.

[fightforfreedom]

6. My melanoma was very deep and aggressive.

I believe the doctors, the surgeons, were very surprised it did not spread anywhere else in my body. Like I said, I had a very unusually case. I was very unlucky and then very lucky. Go figure.

[fightforfreedom]

10. When my doctor told me I had melanoma he acted like he was at funeral.

I took the news fairly well. He told me I would need major surgery on my face and I said lets go. I would have went in for surgery the same day, that minute, if possible. I was ready to fight.

The doctors thought I was stage 3 or 4. After the surgery they told me I was stage 2b. It did not spread to my body. I must have a guardian angel.

The scar on my face has healed nicely. It's about 7 inches long and you can hardly notice it anymore. Still have some nerve damage but I can feel my face slowly coming back to life 8 months later. Some feeling is coming back, my face twitches sometimes. It's like the nerves are trying to regenerate itself. The plastic surgeon did a great job.

[LisaM]

16. I'm so glad you had a good plastic surgeon.

I think they get a bad rap and that people forget all the good they can do (I was fascinated to learn that many of the advances came during and after WWI when veterans were so disfigured from modern weaponry).

Happy New Year.

[PlanetBev]

22. That's exactly what's happening

I had two surgeries on my arm where the melanoma was. The second surgery was in the hospital. The surgeon told me that my arm might be numb, and didn’t know when I’d have feeling back again. Within about two years all the feeling came back. Nerves are amazing things with a mind and a will all their own. They fight like hell to regenerate.

[MLAA]

7. So glad you can see the end of treatment by spring! Sending you healing energy!

[KPN]

8. Great advice! Thank you for sharing your experience and raising awareness. Sending

strong positive vibes your way.

[pandr32]

9. Was the cyst very noticable?

Or was it something you felt with your fingers?
Asking out of concern.

[fightforfreedom]

11. It looked like a small pimple, a little red.

It wasn't very noticeable. It was firm to the touch. It stayed the same size. After it was removed a small hard piece of scar tissue formed. It felt like a tiny stone under my skin. The doctor removed it and that tested positive for melanoma.

The cyst was not tested for melanoma. Doctors may want to re-think that.

[pandr32]

14. Thank you.

It must have been a shock. Hopefully, after making it through the remaining daunting treatments, you will be free of it for good and can move on.

I asked because of a skin issue.

[usaf-vet]

12. If you are a male follow your wife's example when she having her yearly yearly pap and mammogram....

...... and make an appointment to have your PSA (prostate blood exam) done YEARLY.

I went for years and had it done with "normal" results. Then the U.S. government said it was NOT necessary to have one every year. WRONG! I went for two years without and ended up with prostate cancer.

In the short version, I've had multiple needle biopsies. I no longer have a prostate; I've had 36 radiation treatments. I had several injections of a drug that "puts you in a brain fog" you can't focus, and if you are still working, you will struggle to perform tasks that were an everyday event. Luckily I had retired and didn't have to struggle every day.

Now five years later, we think I have beaten it (fingers crossed), BUT with every new pain or discomfort, your first thought is cancer?

I'm not a doctor, so I won't tell you when you should start having yearly PSAs 30,40,50.......?

But I will tell you this if you find you have prostate cancer and catch it early, you have lots of options. If you don't catch it early enough, you still have options (and there are new ones being discovered every year), but having your prostate surgically removed might be necessary.

So having said that, let me end with this warning to the younger men in the audience.......your sex life as you know it might be over.

GET a PSA with your yearly physical it is a simple blood draw.

Thanks fightforfreedom for bringing the topic of cancer to DU on this New Year's Day.

[nightwing1240]

13. Best wishes you recover from this

Thank you for sharing and the good advice

[Wicked Blue]

15. Hang in there, you'll make it, fightforfreedom

I'm relieved that you caught it in time. Melanoma can be sneaky.

Years ago one of my closest friends had a black cyst on her cheek, and I pleaded with her to see a doctor. Unfortunately there was so much tape with Medicare an seeing doctor after doctor that by the time she had surgery, she lost one eye and about a third of her face.

[Hortensis]

17. 12 treatments down, and spring and normal life in sight.

Here's to 2023, Fightforfreedom!

[Ms. Toad]

18. Hang in there.

A lot of folks on biologics have infusions every 4-8 weeks - forever (not just a year). (My daughter is one of them.) You're 2/3 of the way to done for ever!

And definitely insist doctors remove anything which is troublesome.

* My insistence in 2014 that the dermatologist remove a lesion that all of the ABCDEs of cancer, plus surveillance since then of what some case studies suggested should be treated as pre-cancerous led me to discover my sarcoma in 2020.
* My brother's insistence a few years earlier that one of his moles was changing led him to discover his moderately advanced melanoma (the doctor was sure it was nothing)
* My mother's insistence on biopsying something wrong with her breast incidentally (like yours) caught a few cells from her second breast cancer - leading to a double mastectomy which saved her life (she's now a few days away from 91, about a decade out from her second breast cancer)
* My BIL's insistence on removing a lesion on his forehead that bothered him enough that he kept picking at it led to the discovery of melanoma which had moved into his lymph system - he's less than a year out so we'll see how he fares. But his dermatologist had previously refused to remove it.

Lesions cannot definitively be dismissed as non-cancerous - even by doctors.

Hope you continue to be NED.

[malaise]

19. Sound advice

Those scans are good news

[a kennedy]

20. You've at least have a chance to beat this horrible, horrible cancer........I've had two in my

family die of this shit. My favorite brother, and my only sister. Keep the faith, and you’ve got a chance.

[shrike3]

21. You are still in Cancerland.

You are in a funhouse car which takes you through Cancerland, and if you're lucky you get to get out of the car on the other side and walk away. It is a bizarre sort of amusement park, a funhouse. No one understands until they go through it themselves.

But successful treatment means you will have a life again. It might be a very different life, it may be a little different, it may be similar. But you will have a life again.

I went through cancer treatment fourteen years ago. There are days when cancer never crosses my mind.

[Meowmee]

23. Can you post a pic of the cyst?

I hope your treatments end well and you beat the cancer.

My grandmother had another type of skin cancer on her nose and I always worry about it. I get cysts a lot. I had one removed from my thigh, a doc said it could become cancer. It was benign. There is a new melanoma that is red which is also atypical.

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

24. YAY! Hope you killed it, and drove a stake through its evil heart.

Happy New Year!

[hamsterjill]

25. Wishing you strength to get to the end of treatment

And a full recovery. Think about having those drinks at sunset.

All the best.