David's Journey

By: Lynn

We have it all planned. We’re going to retire in a couple of years, move to Texas, travel the world, live as beach bums. I do believe I’ve heard that “the best laid plans always go awry”. I’m here to tell you that’s true.

December 7, 2009 Who would have thought that a mole about the size of a pencil eraser on David’s leg could turn our best laid plans to nothingness????? Who would have thought that the word “MELANOMA” would enter our lives, turn our insides out and scare us to within an inch of our lives???? Who would have ever thought David would say to me “we can hope for the best but prepare for the worst”. When David went in for his annual checkup in September, he and his doctor decided the mole should be removed, so it took until December 7th to get in to the Dermatology clinic and when they removed it they told David right up front that it was suspect melanoma. Our hearts sank and we waited impatiently for the results. We were confident it would be negative.

December 10, 2009 Our “new” oncologist called David to let him know the biopsy had come back malignant. Immediate hysteria set in on my part. David isn’t saying anything but I know he’s concerned. We hold on to each other and vow to fight this battle to the bloody end.

December 14, 2009 We meet face to face with our “new” oncologist and not only did his biopsy come back as malignant it also came back as a Stage III/TIII melanoma. This meant nothing to us, but after about three minutes into the meeting, we found out in a hurry. David’s melanoma had spread past the epidermis, and the dermis skin layers into his leg! Not too bad we thought – it’s only 2.24 MM and a Stage III begins at 2 MM, that’s a long way before it gets in too deep. Well, again our lack of knowledge let us down and at that moment we realized there is no such thing as “TMI” in cancer. After our conference is finished David is sent down to get a chest x-ray and blood taken to “see” if there is anything of note. Surgery to remove the melanoma was the next step. We walked across the hall to meet our “new” oncology surgeon and discussed the various types of surgery with him and decided to go for the most aggressive type – remove the melanoma past the clean margins – just to be sure. We were hoping for a surgery with “no” skin grafts, but willing to do “whatever it takes”. We are now cautiously optimistic and scared to death at the same time. The surgeon wants to get started right away, but we say no – we are headed to Texas on the 17th for Shauna’s retirement from the Air Force and to spend Christmas with the kids. We need to do this and he agrees that we should go.

December 15, 2009 Our oncology nurse calls David and delivers a piece of good news. The blood work all came back perfect as did the chest x-ray. We are giddy with relief. We are going to beat this.

December 31, 2009 David checked in for day surgery, we were confident all would be good, remove the melanoma and move on to making summer vacation plans. Included in today’s surgery would be a sentinel lymph node biopsy. For those that don’t know what that is – it’s where they inject radioactive dye directly into the melanoma and wait for it to trace through the melanoma to any lymph nodes that the melanoma is affecting. I waited patiently during the surgery and after (I think my sister Kriss who was with me would disagree on the patiently, but I felt I was) for the doctor to tell me all was good. He said the surgery went well he ended up removing a section of David’s skin about the size of a small football and then pulled it all together. David had a shark bite incision about 8 inches long and pretty gorey looking, zillions of internal stitches and ten huge “anchor” stitches – five offset on each side. They also removed two sentinel lymph nodes that had “lit” up from the radioactive dye. Now we were waiting for the biopsy of those two lymph nodes to come back but still confident. By now, we’re getting much better with the “hurry up and wait syndrome”.

January 4, 2010 David’s oncology surgeon calls and tells us the dreaded news. The biopsy came back with positive melanoma in “one” of the lymph nodes. David talks matter of fact to the doctor and I cry hysterically and ask God “why”? David hangs up and we talk about what is going to happen, which is basically a whole lot of tests followed by some form of treatment. I continue to cry for two days and David is stoic. I was hoping he would be angry or something but in his usual calm way he accepts things as they are and we make “a plan” and move on. So, we began our greatest adventure – David’s Journey “to” life. Why “to” life? We knew at that moment that we had “to give up our life” for the next five to six months “to have the rest of our life” together.

January 10, 2010 David’s incision has decided to separate. In the scheme of things I am surprised that it’s stayed together for this long. Envision this. Take your hands, put your middle fingers and thumbs together and then spread them out until you have about a three inch gap in the center – well that’s how they excised the melanoma, hence the “small football size”. A three inch gap without a skin graft is pretty hard to get to stay together. The zillion internal stitches have come loose and the only thing that holds the incision together is the anchor stitches. Nasty, bleeding, oozing, but not infected. Thank god for that! Since I tend to be the worry wart in our household, I am worried.

January 19, 2010 We meet with David’s oncology surgeon who is very pleased with the nasty, bleeding, oozing, gaping wound. He decides that an ace bandage should be used to add some tension to the incision. He then tells David and I that he will need another surgery during his treatment to remove the entire lymph node in his groin. In one of our more sane moments we chuckled that he was going to resemble Frankstein on his left leg with two incisions down and more to come. We then meet with David’s oncologist who lays out all types of scenarios and at the end of each one he says “but that’s not for you”. We talk about clinical trials and, and, and. Then he lays out “The Plan” which by the time he’s quit speaking has David and I with the “deer in the headlights look”. It seems that there is NO standardized treatment for melanoma because it’s probably the worst, sneakiest cancer there is. It just kind of attacks wherever and whenever it chooses, so in order to treat it they have to treat “all” cancers so a Bio Chemotherapy (Bio) treatment has been designed to treat/kill/maim active cancer cells from all walks of cancer life. The Bio part is a cocktail of two “biologic agents”, Interleukin and Interferon that your body produces normally as part of your immune system. They give you these drugs to stimulate your body’s own immune system so your immune system can attack the cancer cells. These treat kidney cancer, Hep B & C, lymphoma, skin cancer, leukemia and, and, and. The Chemotherapy part is a cocktail of three drugs Dacarbazine, Cisplatin, and Vinblastine which treat skin cancer, Hodgkins, bladder, testicles, breasts, ovaries, lung, lymphoma. We had a chuckle over the breast and ovaries part. As his oncologist said “we are going to poison you in every way you can think of” and you are going to be very sick. We thought his analogy was just special. And the best part is that this type of treatment is so toxic that you have to be hospitalized for five days to receive it. The treatment is four full days of Bio, and then chemotherapy everyday for three of those days. The side effects of chemotherapy are bad enough, but now we factor in the bio part which makes you deathly ill with severe flu symptoms. The fifth day he gets to rest and then come home. Two weeks later we start all over again. Two treatments of Bio = six weeks, then there is a six week break while he has his surgery and then back for the other two treatments. We ask if there is a support group or someone that has had Bio who can share their experience with us. Knowledge is power and we need to empower ourselves. Fortunately, there are some very caring survivors out there and we had lovely telephone conversations with “Sully”. This is the way it’s been described to us by them. The first one isn’t too bad, after a couple of days you feel “pretty good”. The second one still isn’t too bad, but it takes probably four or five days to feel “better”. The third one they “beat the hell out of you” and the fourth one you get “your ass kicked royally”. We had another conversation with “Rob” and “Betty” and they pretty much echoed what “Sully” had shared with us. We again “make a plan” and start working towards that goal, lots of exercise, protein and rest.

January 26, 2010 David has his PET/CT scan followed by a MRI of his brain. The oncologist is looking for any metastasis of the melanoma. David is again shot up with radioactive dye. Side bar – NO his eyes do not glow in the dark. You can believe that because I checked his eyelids to see if any green glow was emanating from behind them…… And now we wait for results and we are very nervous and not confident at all. If his PET or MRI come back positive all bets are off and we go a different treatment route.

January 27, 2010 David has a stress test of his heart. Believe it or not Bio is so toxic to your body that some people have had heart attacks along with extremely low blood pressure (more medication coming up).

February 1, 2010 After a long weekend of second guessing all of his tests come back perfect and normal. Thanks to all of the people who prayed for us. At this point there are NO ACTIVE cancer cells in his body or his brain and his heart is strong. The doctor is VERY happy with the test results and so we are a go to begin his treatment on February 16, 2010. We properly thanked our Lord for his blessing and were absolutely over the moon. I kind of felt the same kind of happiness that I did on the day he put the engagement ring on my finger some 42+ years ago. We were HAPPY!!!! Along with this news which couldn’t be any better, we found out that David has been accepted by a grant funded study of Integrative/Alternative Medicine for the treatment of cancer. So along with his chemotherapy he will receive alternative medicine – acupuncture for his nausea and side effects, mind/body help (biofeedback), occupational massage, exercise program designed for cancer patients and nutrition. We are very excited about this aspect of his treatment since both of us have had acupuncture with great results and hope the additional treatment will also be successful. And for once it’s not going to cost us an arm and leg.

February 10, 2010 We are headed to Texas again to have one last visit with the kids and to celebrate Jake’s birthday. We are feeling optimistic again because we are house hunting with the intention of buying our house at the beach. Our oncologist agreed that we should do this since for the next five to six months we have got to be very focused on David’s Journey.

Side bar – David and I are so blessed to have the family that we do. Our children are our rocks and keep us buoyed that all will be good. Our grandchildren are a constant joy to us. And our children’s husbands and life partners are an extension of our children. We are lucky to have this motley group that we’ve made into our family.

Additional Information - David has been wonderful about contributing to science regarding melanoma, he’s part of a study of melanoma patients blood, so periodically he will have to give up some more blood. The first time he thought he had been attacked by a vampire. Also, he’s donated all of the tissue removed for study and is contemplating a sleep study for patients undergoing Bio. He has not made up his mind on that one yet. Our Cancer Center here at UCH has some of the best physicians in the country. Our oncologist was trained at MD Anderson in Houston – that gives us some comfort that he is in good hands. Fortunately for us, all oncology patient rooms at UCH are private and designed to have overnight guests so I will be staying with David during his inpatient days. And really fortunate for us is that the hospital is 500 steps from my office, so I can work and walk over periodically to check on him. As I said in the beginning we have come up with “The Plan”.

Please continue to visit this website to see how he is progressing and join in our blog about his “Journey”. Thank you to all of the wonderful folks around us who have prayed for us, been thoughtful and supportive. We plan to get through 2010 and then follow the words in my first paragraph but just in a different context – the work a couple of years has been removed……..

"We have it all planned. We’re going to retire, move to Texas, travel the world, and live as beach bums.” Stay Tuned………

The Keys to a Good Life

• Family
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• Travel