here we go again

Today I was fitted for radiation yes you read that right fitted for radiation. They make a mold of the way they want you to lay when you get your treatments. I will start radiation next week. The new ways they can do it now is so much better than it used to be I will have about 5 treatments a couple of treatments a week it used to be for this same treatment you would go in everyday for like 2 weeks. Immunotherapy is going good.

Here is the latest news, I went to Dr Grossmann he is a doctor who treats advanced cancer, they say that my cancer is advanced stage 3 because it was found in the lymph nodes if it was in an organ then it would be stage 4. The cancer board met they determined that surgery or radiation would not be beneficial so the doctor explained my options we talked about chemotherapy while this is a good treatment he felt that the better treatment is a newer type of immunotherapy this therapy is only new in that it is given at a higher dose. I will start treatment on Friday November 11th.

Update

Last Thursday I went back to the  doctor for my post surgery check-up I was hoping for some news good news. I got news but it wasn't the news I wanted to hear. The test results came back with a couple of cancer cells in one of the lymph nodes and it the margins of the melanoma were positive. So now they will take all this information to the melanoma tumor board to see what the next course of treatment will be. It was difficult news to hear. That afternoon after my doctors appointment I started getting sick. I was really cold and couldn't get warm and I was in a lot of pain and couldn't eat. I finally decided to have Mike take me  to emergency. I had an infection inside where they took the lymph nodes out so now I'm trying to recover from that. The wait is on to hear from the doctor after the tumor board meets either this Thursday or next.

Surgery

Done with surgery, so they removed the Melanoma on my anus and then they removed a lymph node. All of the all of that will go to pathology and I will find out more then. Surgery went well and I have very little pain. I am so thankful for good doctors. I will wright again when I have the answers next week.

The Story

So in trying to keep a long story short, about two months ago I went in for surgery on internal hemorrhoids. They were removed and I thought nothing about the whole thing. Then I went back to the doctor for a follow up visit.He looked at my pathology report they had found a malignant melanoma with in the hemorrhoids that were removed. And that began my journey.  Since then I have seen an oncologist, and have had many tests, colonoscopy, MRI of the brain, PET scan Ct scan these were both full body, a full body assessment of the whole body by a dermatologist. After all of this I went back to the oncologist. He said all of the test look great as far as the big picture is concerned he then said he talked with the tumor board and they all agreed the next step would be surgery to look to see if this had spread microscopically. Today I went to the surgeon at Huntsman cancer center. Was hoping to hear something like looks like they got it all we just need to do some minor snip-its. After examination they found that there is some more that needs to be removed and it is a very tricky spot to operate on. I will need to see another surgeon who does this kind of surgery. My next step is to visit him this Friday to access what will need to happen with his part.
This is the low down, will visit colon surgeon, Then October 5th I will have a special test where they will shoot die into the area where they found the melanoma I wait 4 hours to let it travel to where it would go normally, then they will MRI it to map out how that area drains. Surgery will be the next day October 6th. I will have two surgeons, the colon doctor and the melanoma doctor. The MRI will revel where the Melanoma doctor will take samples and possibly a whole lymph node out to test to see is it has spread further. And there are some other things going on to test on the original specimen that was removed.
Now that was a lot of info for those who wish to know I hope this explains  enough. I will try to keep this up to date as possible.
I have a great team of doctors, I am lucky that they all are so close.