Isolated Tumor Cells SLNB Prognosis

Hello everyone! I'm newly diagnosed in October and have been visiting this site daily since then. You have all been so helpful. I am posting today to find if there is any one out there with a similar situation to mine and hear how they are doing.

My back story is this…in Dec of 2014 I went to the doctor with a mole on my upper right shoulder blade that had been changing into a red bump. Doctor thought it could possibly be Basel Cell or Sebehhoric keratosis (sp?). He chose to freeze it off and said if it comes back it's cancer and he will remove it and if not the it's a Sebehhoric Ketatosis. Next few months it continued to look like a red flat scar so I assumed it was healing, not cancer. This summer it started to raise up into a large red bump (never bled, didn't hurt). Since it was ugly when wearing tank tops I scheduled an appt with my local doctor to remove it. Two days after removal it came back melanoma. My initial diagnosis was Stage IIB (Breslow IV, lymphatic invasion present, 3.5mm, ulcerated, mioticic rate greater than 1).

PET Scan on 10/28 came back clear (yeah!!),  then SLNB and WLE on 10/30 came back margins clear (yeah!!) BUT they found 2 isolated tumor cells in my SN (second node was clear; they removed 2 nodes total). The cells were extremely microscopic, had not even had a chance to cluster or mat. All docs (surgeon, dermatologist and oncologist) felt this was good! Unfortunately, this did elevate me to a IIIB.

First oncologist told us I had a 40% chance of recurrence and suggested no CLND but interferon. I had done my research on interferon and did not want to go that route as I felt it was overkill with my node involvement. We went for a second opinion. Second oncologist (melanoma specialist 20+ years experience) said no CLND (less than 5% chance it would be in remaining nodes) and felt interferons risks far outweighed the benefits for someone like me. He said I am in a grey area. He feels my original tumor may not have been ulcerated and may have appeared that way because of the freezing thus giving me a better prognosis (dermatologist feels that way too). Also in breast cancer patients a node with my cancer involvement would be considered negative but they don't have that proof yet (that will come out in the MLST-II trial in 2022) also giving me a better prognosis. Concerning factors for him were the depth of the tumor. I should also mention that the second pathology report after WLE said my miotic rate was 9! The oncologist didn't really care too much about that but again was more concerned about my tumor depth. He felt my chance of recurrence was more like 20%. So we opted for the watch and wait approach which I'm comfortable with. I have another CT scan and brain MRI scheduled 12/28 and will see the ocologist for the results the same day.

my questions for all of you are these. Given my grey area factors do I have a good prognosis? Has anyone had their initial tumor froze off therefore presenting as ulceration? In my heart I feel I am more like a stage IIB or IIA (whichever way you want to look at the ulceration) even though clinically I am considered a stage IIIB. What is everyone's thoughts on all this!?