Typically on this blog I try not to get too personal in regards to myself and family but when life
doses you a certain way, you can't hide behind it.
With that said, for those of you that know me and the one that don't, I am married. My husband and I have been together for 15 years. We have five amazing awesome kiddos. A little less than five years ago, my husband had a mole removed from his back and it was determined as to be Fast Spreading Malignant Melanoma. I still remember the day when he went to get his stitches taken out at his doctors and that is when the doctor told him what it was and what was going to happen next. My husband, Joe, was going deer hunting after that appointment. He gave me a call before he got in the woods and told me what the doctor said. My heart sank into my stomach. As a girl working in the medical industry I knew exactly what type of cancer that was and how serious. It isn't just the process of removing a mole and then having no cancer. This skin cancer is fast spreading if not caught in time; hence the name for it. That night though my husband got a 13 point Buck. Biggest deer he has ever gotten. A horrible day but a good day.
Surgery happened not to far after receiving the diagnosis. They did a PET scan before he went back to surgery so they could see where it did spread to. So: a huge section of his back was removed from where the mole was before and on top of that they removed lymph nodes under both his arms to make sure that they got all the live cancer cells. Surgery was a success!!! We caught it in time and he was cancer free.
Here are some photos of his back. He had to get a skin graph done because of how deep they had to go.
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| Two days after surgery. |
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| One year after surgery. |
They removed skin from his thigh to make the back graph. So he was pretty sore after surgery but we were thankful to hear even after a year that he was still cancer free.
Well over time he has had some symptoms that would come and go and then come back even stronger so finally he said it was time to go back to the doctor for a full workup because he has been feeling like crap. The doctor agreed to do a full workup and testing. So this past Thursday at our visit with his primary care physician, the doctor ordered blood-work plus a chest x-ray, and MRI and a CT scan. The scans and tests were done on Friday at a hospital. Yesterday morning the office called first thing in the morning to share the news of all the tests. It wasn't good news to say the least.
They found some vitamin deficiencies in his blood-work so adding Vitamin D into a daily regiment along with getting B12 shots for now every month. The CT scan showed a small mass of gray matter in his brain near his ocular lobes. This explains the vertigo and headaches he has been having. The MRI showed a mass behind his abdomen. We have to wait until Tuesday, September 3rd, to have the PET scan done to see how active these cells are in his abdomen and determine what stage of cancer this is. We have to wait until October to see a neurologist which I think is dumb. They may change their tune on that date once these PET scans come back. I'm not going to lie.....I'm completely terrified. Since I work in the medical field and know what I know about this form of cancer is not helping anything. His type of cancer if it metabolizes it will 75% of the time be found in the brain and also places itself apart of the digestive system. Exactly the two spots where they found masses. Cancer sucks. Period. This cancer has not stage two or three. Just Stage 1 and stage 4. Its either you caught it in time or you don't. This is my biggest fear that it might be too late. I pray every second that we did catch it in time. All we can do now is sit and wait and pray. Lots of prayer. I'm sharing this with you all because I need your prayers too. Please pray for my husband and that this is just like before with having surgery and be cancer free again. I beg of you. Thank you.......................
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| My husband and I. |
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| All of our kiddos! :) |
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| This is what I keep telling myself so I don't make things worse then what they are. It is not really working but I'm trying!!! |
With that said, for those of you that know me and the one that don't, I am married. My husband and I have been together for 15 years. We have five amazing awesome kiddos. A little less than five years ago, my husband had a mole removed from his back and it was determined as to be Fast Spreading Malignant Melanoma. I still remember the day when he went to get his stitches taken out at his doctors and that is when the doctor told him what it was and what was going to happen next. My husband, Joe, was going deer hunting after that appointment. He gave me a call before he got in the woods and told me what the doctor said. My heart sank into my stomach. As a girl working in the medical industry I knew exactly what type of cancer that was and how serious. It isn't just the process of removing a mole and then having no cancer. This skin cancer is fast spreading if not caught in time; hence the name for it. That night though my husband got a 13 point Buck. Biggest deer he has ever gotten. A horrible day but a good day.
I started praying for him and your family as soon as I read this blog,,,Joe is and always will be a dear friend to me. Even though throughout the years we have become distant from each other I have always to this day felt he is my brother. Bad things happen in life daily to people that don't deserve it and Joe falls absolutely falls into that category,,,he may be an asshole but if your lucky enough to be one of the people he cares about he is the most giving and truthful person you will come across, most likely in your entire lifetime. I wish for the best in this bad situation and I will continue to pray for my brothers well being,,,,STAY STRONG JOE I LOVE YOU!!!!
ReplyDeleteI am a nurse. I worked Oncology for 6 years and during that time I saw amazing things happen. I want to share with you the ONE MOST IMPORTANT thing I learned. QUALITY-vs- QUANTITY. Most people will not be honest with you about this subject, but I thought I would try. With any stage IV cancer, if treatment with chemotherapy and/or radiation is opted, it is palliative only. Meaning "comfort measure therapy". Physicians will tell you it is NOT curative. It will most likely make Joe VERY sick...vomiting, diarrhea, weak, etc... whereas taking meds to keep him as pain free as possible will allow him to live as close to normal as possible--even hunting if he feels like it! My sister's husband was diagnosed with stg IV bone cancer. He was given about 3 mos. He lived almost 10 mos. He opted for no treatment, but to travel, do things he had always wanted to do and to not be sick all the time. It's a huge choice that you must make as a family. Those 5 precious children need to be involved also, because their opinion counts too. I am praying hard for a miracle for your family, I wish you All the Best, and I know you can make the right decision for your family. In closing, one of my patients once said the most prolific thing to me. I was at her bedside at the end of her life and asked her "Are you afraid"? Her answer will NEVER leave me....she said "Toni, I'm not afraid of dying to YOUNG, I'm afraid of living too LONG". It really made me think....I will keep your family close to my heart, and hope to see this story continue!! Sincerely, Toni Quezada :)
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