Dr. McMasters

God how ironic, today would have been my mothers 80th birthday and here I am having my first meeting with the surgical oncologist. Dr. McMasters reviews my biopsy with me and emphasizes the fact the 90 to 95% of the patients that he sees with melanomas only 1.05 mm thick do not need anything beyond a wide local excision (doctor speak for removing a big hunk of my shoulder where the mole was). He is also going to do a sentinel node biopsy, where they inject a radioactive isotope and blue dye into my arm at the melanoma site and track it to the lymph nodes that drain this area. They can follow the path of the injection with the isotope to get to the immediate area and when they surgically open me up, the sentinel lymph nodes are blue. The theory is that if the cancer has begun to spread any, it will first be visible in the sentinel lymph nodes.
He explains that the treatment option, if the cancer has spread, is removing the lymph nodes followed by a year long course of interferon. When I tell him that I want to talk about interferon therapy, he stops me and says that we don't need to because the cancer hasn't spread. I push the subject and tell him the I have always maintained that I would never do chemotherapy after having watched Jennie and Chris, his response is that I would never do interferon then, because it is worse than chemotherapy.
He sets a surgery date of Thursday May 3rd.

Cancer

Oh sh**, I got the phone call from Dr. Waldman that the mole was melanoma. The cancer is 1.05 mm thick which is supposed to mean that there is a 90 - 95% chance that the cancer will not have spread beyond the mole itself. Dr. Waldman refers me on to Dr. Kelly McMasters of Brown Cancer Center, who is a surgical oncologist.
The mind blocks unpleasant memories, I honestly forgot how scary all of this (cancer) was when Chris went through it in 12 years ago. Our family history sucks when it comes to cancer: my younger sister, Jennifer, died of breast cancer when she was 34 and my son Christopher died of neuroblastoma when he was 14. Darn I am scared.
I share this information with a few select individuals: my family, Rita, Carol, Tom, Steve and Mark but am keeping the diagnosis to myself until I know what my prognosis is. I am too scared and am not up to sharing the information with a bunch of people until I know what I am dealing with. I don't even talk to anyone in my family except for Linda for the first week or so. Overwhelming isn't too strong of a word.
When I contact Dr. McMasters' office, I find out that he can't see me for two weeks - this is going to be slow torture. Thank God that I had a trump card to play and I called my friend Dr. Steve McClave, who gets me into see Dr. McMasters in a week.
God, I am glad that Mom isn't alive to deal with another of her children going through cancer.

Dermatologist

Routine visit to Dr. Mark Waldman to have a mole on my left shoulder removed. Dr. Waldman was concerned by the appearance of the mole although Dr. Renco didn't think that it was anything to worry about.