One Year

Today marks one year since I knew for sure my cancer was in fact back. I got the call from my doctor around 5:30pm. I was driving to my friends to grab dinner. Once I saw who was calling I quickly pulled over on the side of the road. As he was explaining what was found, metastatic melanoma, I was numb but my mind was also racing so fast. I knew the second that I heard it was him calling, not his nurses or staff, that it wasn't good news. After we hung up I let up a giant cry, a bawl you'd say. I then called my parents and talked to my mom. I talked with a few people that night as well as my doctors at Huntsman. After sitting on the side of the road for a good hour, I finally headed to my friends and cried some more. We still went and grabbed dinner, I needed to eat.
The next few days were a whirlwind of doctor calls and collecting my thoughts. Scans were scheduled, more biopsies. Then came surgery and then everything else... And then we are here. A year later. I did so many things this past year I never would have thought I was tough enough or brave enough to do. In almost all the situations I didn't really have a choice and just carried on one day at a time, sometimes one minute or second at a time.

I am happy that I have some good news on this year anniversary. My tumors are all so small now, some I can't even feel anymore which is truly amazing. I just am in awe that something could be so big and then just fade away basically. Who knows where they are going, but all I know is I am more comfortable and handling this treatment well. My side effects have been minimal. Very tired the first week, that has diminished in the second week but has been replaced with hives and nausea. The hives aren't normal so they had me go to same day dermatology to get checked out. We are going to manage them and hope they don't get too bothersome - luckily they don't itch like normal hives. And I am sadly just used to being nauseous.

I have had a good time surprising people with the amazing results because they truly are unbelievable. Let's just say that there have been many many happy tears shed.

Here are some pictures to see how little they all are, and how great my jawline looks!

Today 1/14/16

Side

Hives