Elation!!

     The plastic surgeon called yesterday afternoon and since I was taking my husband in to get a mole (I hope, a mole) removed from the bottom of his foot,  the surgeon left a message that he had good news for me. Yes, the two sentinel nodes were clean -- no cancer. And there was no residual tumor in the arm either. So the original depth of lesion of 0.48 mm stood as the total depth -- a depth that has very low risk of spread. I am still to follow up with medical oncology but I don't think there is much to do unless there will be some followup chest xray and other imaging down the road, I don't know. Anyway after this last week of surgery followed by worry, fearing the worst, a great load is now lifted from my shoulders. Hopefully Amos' path will also be negative when we get the results on Friday. Then we will both be able to heal and then get back to normal life. It is certainly amazing how quickly a very positive outlook on life can be changed for the worse with one of these medical adventures. I feel that it is very important to keep up my spiritual practices and to continue to live each day with mindfulness to maintain some of the life learning that this experience has provided to me.
     Now on to other topics in this blog. I am working on the story of our sojourn in Moldova, land of Amos' ancestors. I want to combine this with some photos. I plan for that to be my next posting here.
    

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting ....

Yes, I am waiting ... one of the hardest things to do when associated with the diagnosis of cancer.

Hoping for the Best, Worrying about the Worst.

Tomorrow I go to have definitive surgery for my melanoma. If you have a strong mental constitution read on to find out my mental ramblings during this time.

"When It Rains, It Pours"

For me the title applies to my current medical condition.

Our Travels + Melanoma

After the last post, anyone accessing this site might be wondering what is going on. Well, we decided with the support of my surgeon, and my oncologist partner, my son the surgeon, and another surgeon partner of mine, that we would go ahead with the planned trip. Everyone agreed that it would not make any difference to postpone the definitive surgical removal and the sentinel node biopsy for 4 weeks so we could take this trip. I have spent some time off and on checking the lesion that still remains on my right upper arm. It will be nice to get it off though the trip of course has kept me occupied to block most of these thoughts.

Where do I begin? A diagnosis of malignant melanoma!

     I am engulfed, embroiled in a universal experience and want to write about some of the events and the overwhelming feelings that become involved.