Cancer Diagnosis: 2 years ago: stage IV

Two years ago, my world was rocked by a stage IV Metastic Melanoma diagnosis. Scientifically, I really should not be here.  I was dying. I had one doctor hand me a LiveStrong Foundation's guide to cancer and pat me on the back and say "Good Luck." Another oncologist looked at me with anguish in his face and say, "What are you doing here?" & "I could have done this over the phone." My husband asked him if there was another stage...he was told, "You don't want to know what that stage is."

Fear filled out hearts as we started the 2 1/2 hour drive back to our mountain cabin. Thank God my Mother was with us to help drive.  My husband was pale as a ghost. I cursed the medical community as they had NOT offered me any serious help to save my life. So far, to all the doctors I had seen I should start planning my final days alive.

At that moment I knew I needed to flee the mountains. I needed to leave my beloved sanctuary in the Sierra Nevadas to save my life. At the point I had absolutely NO IDEA where to go and what to do. We drove up into the snowy mountains and picked up our daughter at a friends house.  The mood was beyond somber....it was morbid. We drove up highway 4 in a blizzard and had to gear up for the walk to the cabin.  My daughter was heart broken and cried all the way home. This was one of the last times she cried for a long time. Her anguish and heart break was to be buried deep inside her soul, coming out later in behavior of self harm.

The next day Mom and I packed up and snowmobiled down to the parking lot to her car. It was time to leave. It was time to run as fast as we could, to save my life.

TODAY:  I sit at my kitchen counter writing this blog, feeling so eternal grateful to suriving my treatments. Somedays I have to pinch myself...I am ALIVE!!  

I pray for those who are out there fighting this ugly disease of melanoma. Cancer is an ugly monster that attacked the heart and soul of the family's who face it.

I hope to join the melanoma blogging community with my thoughts and prayers to help spread awareness and HOPE to those who are diagnosed. 

Let us all make BLACK the new Pink!  Spread HOPE and awareness of the dangers of the sun and tanning.