I'm new to this website, and my treatment has been different to most, so far so good, so I wanted to get it out there.
I'm new to this website, and my treatment has been different to most, so far so good, so I wanted to get it out there.
I am 46 yr old female from Christchurch (New Zealand). In 2006 I had a melanoma removed from back (1.7mm). Had no probelems for 5 1/2 years when I discovered a lump on my side, turned out I had 3 subcut. tumours an adrenal tumour and a tumour on the tail of my pancreas. I went into meltdown but managed to read everything I could about melanoma. The common theme I could see was that complete surgical resection seemed to be the best chance of changing the course of this dreadful cancer. I insisted on surgery (it took some doing). When my oncologist agreed, the adrenal tumour had grown very large and very close to my aorta. I then went on Z for just 7 weeks (not yet funded in NZ so very expensive) I had dramatic reduction in all tumours and my surgeon (Connor Saxon, my hero) agreed to remove tumours. I have had an all clear 3 month scan, and am about to get my results from 6 month tests (very anxious time), but I feel completely fine and don't let melanoma dent my hapiness too much at the mo. I have decided to keep as aggressive as I can. My thinking is that if need surgery again (if viable) I will be able to go back on Z and it should give me similar results, as my first tumours didn't have time to develop resistance. My Surgeon and Oncologist think this may be a succesful way of treating stage 4 and are currently writing up my case. I hope this helps some one….please remember it is now thought that complete resection of tumours is the vital part of surgery, the number of tumours removed is insignificant, in fact in recent studies I have read people with more tumours removed do better – who knows, maybe their immune system gets such a boost from having no tumours to fight, it goes into overdrive!
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