Hello
My husband is currently undergoing 33 radiation treatments for Stage 3 melanoma in his neck. His initial tumour was diagnosed last July and he had surgery to remove it. It recurred in January and he had a radical neck dissection in mid-February, 2014. Of the 26 lymph nodes that were removed, none were postive for melanoma. We are still processing this situation emotionally and I am very thankful to have found this site. The comments from those who are further along this path are very helpful. We chose to do radiation because his margins in one area were not clear after the neck dissection. The radiation treatment disqualified him from doing the clinical trial that was another option. The third option would have been to follow the radiation with one year of Interferon Alpha, which we decided against. My husband, Peter, has finished 13 out of the 33 radiation treatments so far. He is very fatigued and his skin is quite burnt already. His throat is so tender that he is very limited in what he can eat, and his appetite is small. The symptoms will intensify over the next 4 weeks, which will be hard to see. Hopefully the radiation will kill whatever cancer cells are left in his neck. We live in Kitchener, Ontario, and he is being treated at Grand River Cancer Centre with Dr. Knight and Dr. Fortin. We also had a second opinion from Dr. Hogg at Princess Margaret before making our treatment decision. He is BRAF and NRAS negative.
Yasmin
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