Some Good (and a little weird) News

So after 4 full weeks of waiting, and waiting and waiting some more to figure out what we're going to do with this medical situation we finally have an answer! Last night we got a call from our new doc in Tampa letting us know he'd met with the whole "team" to discuss my case and look at my scans on a 3D imaging machine. (Yup.... basically it's a naked you projected into a room which they can actually walk around ... comforting huh?) The surgical oncologist there figured out what nobody else had. The tumor that they're seeing is not actually a recurrence of the melanoma. It's the "sentinel lymph node" that was associated with the first melanoma I had. It unfortunately was not taken out in my first round of surgeries. My original surgeons thought they had gotten everything and focused on the lymph nodes in my groin, but apparently this one was hiding in my back behind the site of the melanoma and no one could see it. It's been sitting there for more than 3 years and just recently became active in a way that would show up on a scan.

So.... this is actually great news! It means that I am stage 3 rather than 4, and because of the location of the node I will definitely be having surgery. I've never been so happy to be told they may be cracking a rib or 2. Your perspective changes a lot when dealing with these things! By the end of the week we'll be developing a schedule which will involve flying back to Tampa and going through recovery there. We don't know yet how long I'll be out of commission, but we plan to keep the business open and just be honest with people in terms of what we can do and what we can't where deadlines are involved. So far so good.

Thanks again for all the notes of support and love. They mean a lot.

Best,
R + D



Here are a couple photos of my cheering squad. They've kept me smiling these last weeks, and since it's my blog I get to post little bits of eye candy...

Winter

Wonka