Sharp Turn - Stage IV Melanoma

This is my first entry. My reason for doing this is both a conservation of my time and hopefully some therapy also. I have had many similar conversations with loved ones as I recap what has happened. I am going to start with the cold hard facts and get into more story later.

In about November of 2004 I first noticed that a mole on my right breast started itching more and more. As typical for most men, I put it off. I was engaged and the wedding was to take place Dec. 31st. I figured I could get to it soon enough.

After the wedding my wife Spring and I had what we called our Honeymove. The first week in January, we packed our belongings in Santa Barbara, CA and moved to Salt Lake. Shortly after, I met with an oncologist. He looked at it and was concerned enough to cut out about a dime size chunk and have it biopsied. It came back positive. He referred me to a surgical oncologist who proposed using dyes, etc to "light up" the infected nodes. I didn't like the sound of it so I just ignored him for a month or so.

Finally, I agreed to a "2 cm margin" to get surrounding tissue in case of spread. That took place around May 2005.

In November 2007, I noticed two large bumps under my right arm. I went to see a different oncologist at the Huntsman Cancer Center in Salt Lake who operated on it just after my only child was born in January 2008. I consulted with a radiation specialist and a chemo specialist and neither presented a statistic that sounded hopeful so I refused both treatments. Since then I thought I was cancer free

On Friday, August 28th, My wife and I went to see the same Surgical Oncologist. The Dr. said that I did show positive for a recurrence and this time, there was too much to operate (I expect to post details and pics soon). He set up another appointment about two hours from then.

We got to look at the Torso CT and brain MRI taken the day prior. There is 2 BB sized cancers in the right frontal lobe of the brain. There is 1 about the size of my thumb in the back of my neck just below the skull. I have two about the size of an almond in my right breast, several around the stomach lining and one next to the kidney. Also one about two inches in diameter in my left Psoas and one slightly smaller than a golf ball in my right thigh just above the knee. The last one was the one I found that prompted the call to the Dr.

My wife and I met with a chemo specialist at the Huntsman Center and he painted an ugly picture which scared the crap out of me. In a nutshell, he said there is no cure so that is not the goal. The statistics showed about 5 percent of the patients that recieve some variation of the treatments he had available had a positive response. This is to say that they lived about another 2 years.

My wife and I went home that afternoon and held each other tight as we cried a lot.