Tumor Board

It has been a rough couple days; I’m not going to lie.

After over two weeks of waiting, we finally got the pathology back and it wasn’t good.. They removed 37 lymph nodes from the left side of my neck and 3 came back with melanoma. There was also floating cells in the surrounding tissue (there is some crazy scientific name for these but I can’t seem to remember what it is) and these cells are what is scary… They are just floating, ready to spread and grow. That’s when the big words came out, like radiation and the big one – biochemo.

Before the pathology came back I had an appointment with an oncologist and from the information he had then, there weren’t many options available to me at Stage IIIc, none that I felt confident in pursuing. It is sad when you know you need to do something but the options they give you only help 8% of the patients that take it.. I don’t like those odds and quality of life vs. benefit plays a giant role. I left that appointment frustrated and felt that I was sick, just not sick enough for more options. Now that pathology is back, I am definitely sick enough. 

My case was brought to what is called the “Tumor Board” where they basically have a meeting to discuss my case in its entirety and decide what to do. All the big docs are there and they just hash out what to do and what has already been done. Today was the day that my case got presented and where more than one big-wig-melanoma-guru voted that radiation and biochemo is what needs to happen; that I am young and need to hit it hard now.  Hearing it from the big docs makes it just that much more important and real.

Biochemo is a very intense form of chemo. It is a combination of 5 drugs, 3 of them are regular chemotherapy drugs and then 2 are immunotherapy drugs. It is done in an inpatient setting to monitor side effects and toxicity. After 5 days inpatient you go home and do injections at home every other day for a week and then have a week to recoup before embarking on the cycle again. At my stage they are suggesting 3 rounds followed by radiation. It’s crazy to think that you voluntarily enter into this type of torture. I have to just think that this extremely hard year is so that I can have many more good years ahead. I’m not worried so much about the hair loss and the nausea and sickness, but I’m terrified of the damage it may do to everything else. Is my body strong enough to do this? I guess you’ll never know until you are in it… such a scary thing to agree to. That is why I have to have pure confidence in my doctors that they will have my best interest at heart and do what is best for me in the long run.

I am not blind to the fact that I’m in for a rough go and that this is a very serious thing I’m dealing with. How I got dealt this card and battle I don’t know, but someone thinks I have it in me to fight again and so I am going to, even if I am shaking and terrified. This may be the battle of and for my life, I have to get my head in the game and look past the grueling months ahead to when it is all over and I can celebrate.

But for today I am sad and scared. Working on being optimistic and strong, that will have to come another day.  Today I am going to let myself feel the sadness of the situation so that I can work past it.

One day at a time.