Cruel Joke

It appears that a recurrence around Thanksgiving is becoming a tradition. It is some sort of a cruel joke that life is playing on us. Just when things were once again wonderful and we had settled into a “normal” life, Melanoma reared its un-welcomed head. Why? Why Mike? Why us? It is so hard to control the anger when all you want to do is scream. This one really hurts because Mike just endured six months of Chemo, six months of pain and discomfort for naught.

Mike’s quarterly scans showed Melanoma in his body, and for the second year in a row, Mike had surgery right before Christmas. This time, it was the lymph nodes in his groin/abdomen area. Dr. Spitz did a marvelous job with the surgery, and we learned that 15 malignant tumors were removed this time.

Mike’s recovery was again not easy, but if you look up the words “determined,” “tenacious,” “strong-willed” and “resolute” in the dictionary, I guarantee you will see Mike’s picture. Mike is so strong-willed that on the day of his discharge, he refused to wait for the hospital to wheel him out, and walked out to the car with 20+ stitches and staples in his stomach, and the drain in tow (yep, we got another drain). The nurses chased us down the hall, begging that we wait, but Mike would not have any of it. He wouldn’t even let me pull the car up front.

Mike is now feeling better from the surgery, and we are waiting to get into yet another clinical trial at UCLA. Hey, if we have to travel somewhere for Mike’s treatments, it might as well be LA. The trial is a category of drugs called anti-CTLA-4 drugs, which work to activate the immune system to attack lingering Melanoma cells and prevent recurrences. To get into a clinical trial, there is a lot of red-tape to go through. The wait is unbearable, of course. So we just have to keep our fingers crossed, and hope this happens soon. In the meantime, we will go to the Cayman Islands to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary!

We will not be defined by this damn disease. We will live life. We will enjoy each little thing life has to offer. We will laugh. We will have fun. We will continue to Hope. We will continue to believe.