Life changes after melanoma stage 3

So what’s the update

I’m feeling the love and attention.

It seems the whole family pitched in to make sure I got everything I need. Mike gave me a car to get me to the OR on time. Sara gave me her room, Kevin visited, and Mary Kate got me my favorite anti-cancer treat (cinnamon donuts from Dippin’ Donuts). Mary supervised my first baths and dressings and got me home after some hilarious incidents caused by Ativan. It made me truly looped for the entire day after the nuclear tracing injections. I forgot to be NPO after midnight because I woke up at 12:30 am with a graham cracker in my mouth… and ate it. I had a low threshold of inhibition & then has to ‘fess up to anesthesia. They gave me a spinal instead of general. I promise to be better.

Elizabeth took over for 2 weekends and was very attentive making sure I got coffee and my special toast from Rose32, my favorite bakery.

I am improving from the toe amp. I had my first day without any pain medication on Jan. 19. I am walking easily sometimes with a cane. During my last visit to the surgeon, Laura Lambert (google her to find out her creds), 2 old time nurses & I impressed the young doc with our ancient tales.

Katie came from CA to do an elective on melanoma for 3 weeks until Feb. 8. She has been answering her own questions and talking to classmates, and will explain all my options so I can be ready for the oncologists. We can hopefully get her a few days in derm clinic at UMass.

So the plan is for surgery on Thursday, Jan 27: a superficial left groin lymph node dissection. A lot of nodes will be removed and tested to further stage the melanoma.

Staging determines treatment options.

After the surgery, I will have drains in my groin and be sent home for a month of recovery, trying to keep the drain clean and dry with the aid of diaper gel dressings. I may be on crutches again, short term.

I have 2 follow up appointments scheduled with oncology. The first opinion is with Kathryn Edmiston scheduled for 2 weeks after surgery UMass. The second opinion is one week after the surgery. Yes, typical backass style. I’m seeing Paul Chapman, one of the dream team members at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. (MSKCC). I just hope at one-week post op, I’m somewhat mobile.

Whatever is the consensus will hopefully be started at UMass somewhere around Mar 1. KT says I’m to receive immunotherapy rather than chemotherapy. The goal is to stimulate my immune system to attack cancer cells. My lymphocytes are being lazy, or the melanoma is smart. Immunotherapy is no cakewalk…it makes you feel like you have perpetual flu with muscle aches, fatigue, depression and the yucks. Yuck.

For fun, KY and I are going to NYC to see Book of Mormon and staying at Karen Eckhert’s studio. She is out on the west coast being a new Grammy. Karen is Lynn’s sister from Buffalo, and we have been to NYC for shows and museums. We can hopefully see the new American Wing at the Met and go to MoMA. Then back on Wednesday, and NPO after midnight for surgery the next day, if I can remember.

Fun things in my life, not in any order:

• Winner at duplicate bridge yesterday w/partner Pat Seabourne.
• 2 weekend visits by EJ to get me home to the lake and laugh.
• EJ cleaning up my piles of stuff….what a switch!
• Skyping with Porter weekly. What a boost he is with typical 20 month old antics.
• Celebration of Stage 3 (not 4) dinner with stories of Lou and guns.
• Plans to listen to ice noises with the underwater microphone from Skip and Judy Nielsen
• Laughing at the Colbert and Stewart election antics.
• Putting my car off my driveway into the trees after not making it up the hill with the recent snow.
• John Stone, jailer, getting me up and going with coffee and oatmeal every day, setting quotas of soccer ball production and making me use the crutches.
• Sara’s Stone’s basketball games
• Mary Stone’s (my sister) dinners, medication supervision, running UMass central, and being there.
• Messages, visits, and help from all my lake friends. I know they are there for me.

This weekend I’m expecting a visit from a Burundi Jesuit priest. Heis getting a PhD at BC in Human Rights & Social Justice. We met on the plane to Rwanda. The Patriots-Ravens game will be on. Lou and Lynn may visit, and Kevin and Carol, too.

All the emails and phone calls from friends, near and dear and now renewed are a boost.

I am smiling lots , enjoying each minute, and finding all the black humor I can.

Meg

http://www.mskcc.org/news/announcement/msk-researchers-appointed-stand-melanoma-dream-team

Thanks to Kt for making sentences complete and erasing most of my elipses…