He was originally diagnosed in 2015 when a mole on his temple turned to melenoma. he was diagnosed with stahe 3 because of how deep it was and it his the lymph nodes. After three surgeries, and six months of radiation he was in remission. As for the Crohn's he was in remission fom 2010-until this past November. That's actually how we found the melanoma. He had a severe Crohn's attach that landed him in the hospital. Due to his history of melanoma, his doctor sent him for an MRI and PET scan before deciding on how she weanted to treat him. That's when we discovered the two tumors in his leg. They did a biopsy and diagnosed him with Stage IV melanoma. The tough part with the VA is they drag their feet on this stuff. Because of the severeity of the Crohn's, his doctor wnats to treat it as quickly as possible. So she decided to put him on Stelara. Stelara can cause melanoma but since he already has it, the benefits are greater than the risks according to her. The Stelara can also supress his immune system. He is supposed to begin immunotherapy in the next few weeks to treat the melanoma but first he has to do another round of scans. His oncologist has to keep an eye on one of the tumors in his thigh because it is close to the bone. Pluse she fears he may have smaller tumors that the scans have not detected yet. With the Stelara and the immunotherapy i have been told that he basically won't have an immune system until this is all over.
I honestly don't know how deep the tumor was but I'm guessing because it's not on his skin but in the leg tissue/muscle it's a nodule? Right now they are saying the cancer may be in his lymph nodes in his stomach but it's hard to know because it could be inflamation from teh Crohns, and it's in his thigh. But this was all almost a month ago! We will have new scans done next week and will talk to the oncologist next week as well.
