9%

These 2 people ARE MY EVERYTHING, I fought for you both!! Love, Mom

Lately I have been really thinking about how amazing it is that I am still standing here today. I had 9% chance of living 5 years passed my diagnosis of stage IV metastatic melanoma. I was dying....


YET, I am here....

I want to send a quick message out to the newly diagnosed and those struggling with scanxiety and survivors guilt.

1st  Are you new to melanoma?  I am sorry you are here, but if there were a "good" time to get sick with melanoma, this is the time. Melanoma is leading the way for cancer treatments with new and more effective than when I was diagnosed. The new treatments are tailor made for each patient and encourage a person's own immune system to attack the cancer!  yay for research!!  This is a SCARY AS HELL fight you are facing, but there are those of us out here who have fought the fight and we are here to support you.


2nd SCANXIETY: it is REAL!  I spent the first half of September with an intense fear that the cancer was back. I imagined telling my family, I told my family... I cried and I planned my funeral. SERIOUSLY, scanxiety is that bad.  IT SUCKS BIG TIME. I get these panic attacks less and less... whereas my first 2 years I carried anxiety meds with me and cried a lot, and now I am down to 1 or 2 freak outs a year. THIS HAPPENS and IT PASSES. When you get to the other side of fear over a test, or a spot on your ass,(insert laugh) or WHATEVER medical test you are facing, scanxiety is REAL. Please be gentle with yourself and find a melanoma support group online.




3rd  Survivor's Guilt. This is real as well. After I have a freak out about cancer, I feel a bit guilty I am still alive. Why am I here? Why am I so special to have lived when SO MANY are gone from melanoma??  And many people who are younger than me... I do not know. When I look back to the hell I went through fighting melanoma I know I fought LIKE HELL to be alive and there must be a reason beyond my understanding for me to still be breathing.  SURVIVOR'S GUILT is real and also this passes....


One day we will see an end to cancer. One day mother's won't bury their children and children won't bury their parents who passed from this horrible-HORRIBLE cancer, known as melanoma. IT IS SO MUCH MORE THAN "JUST SKIN CANCER!"

Hug your self.... you deserve it!  Oh hell... get a GREAT bottle of wine and CELEBRATE!  YOU ARE HERE, READING MY little blog and therefore melanoma has affected you and you are STILL HERE!!