Melanoma Update

A few months ago one of the surgeons I work with at the hospital noticed the big gnarly scar on my neck and asked what it was. So I responded, melanoma no big deal. He looked at my neck again and said, I don't think so, tell me more - what stage was it, what class was it, etc, etc. I didn't remember, I just remembered them saying it was deep, took out a lymph node, get dermatologist exams every 6 months and all is good. So I ordered my medical records which took forever, but finally came in the mail a few weeks ago and I told him the results of my pathology, which was early Clarks level IV. I stressed the 'early' part and the surgeon just laughed at me and said, no that means Clarks level IV, which apparently is the worst level there is. He said I needed to have a PET scan and proceeded to call the radiology department and told them to expect me the next day they were in town, which was 2 days later on my birthday.

So on my birthday I had a PET scan. I didn't mind (except for the price tag) because I've wanted one for a while. He said that if the melanoma spread or were to come back, it wouldn't necessarily show up as a mole, it would show up in my liver or something like that. Thankfully the test came back negative and didn't detect any cancer cells at this time. The surgeon later told me that he was very surprised it was negative because he was expecting it to show cancer somewhere. He also said that I was lucky that I didn't because with that type of staging and location of the original melanoma, most oncologists that deal with melanoma would have removed all lymph nodes in the area. This obviously would have resulted in a much bigger scar and deformation of my neck. Needless to say I feel very blessed that the surgery I had, although it felt major at the time, was minor compared to what it could have been and very blessed that there has been no sign of it returning. I still have to make an appt with the oncologist who comes to town every week for a follow up just to make sure I'm not missing something. I'm sure I'll get around to that sometime....

I was also looking forward to the PET scan because I thought I would finally be able to tell if I have a spleen or not (long story for another post), but it uses a particular type of imaging that didn't show so I still don't know if I have a spleen.

And these pictures are just because I don't have any pictures lately of my hair. It seems like it is taking FOREVER to grow this time! I like the cut and style most of the time. Every now and then I fix it and it looks really cute, and I try and recreate it the next day and of course it just doesn't turn out...