Hi I'm Pat. I am a wife of 30yrs (childhood sweethearts) and a mum of three. James is 27, Thomas is 25 and Daisy is 22. I was 50 in July and had a massive party/celebration as I have previously survived a pituitary brain tumour & all the massive fallout that has caused me...... I take medication by the bucketload every four hours, I have zero immunity because I take methotrexate and Benepali injections once each per week for arthritis & I’m also Cortisol dependent. This tablet/injection life is my daily/weeky routine. But my brain tumour was benign, so I considered myself lucky, although quite poorly, until I developed a mole on my left shoulder which turned very nasty, very quickly. My GP sent me to hospital and I was put on the 2WW (2 week wait) under the cancer referral. Saw the dermatologist & was told it looked like a melanoma and would need urgent removal. After removal under local anaesthetic, (2wks wait) it was confirmed as a malignant melanoma 2.6mm and I would be seen by the plastic surgeon that day. After being told this news I was made to wait a few hours, which was awful! I now need a WLE and a SLNB (getting these abbeviations from google!) the surgeon said I need an urgent WLE/SLNB and it was a 3a due to the cancerous cells found but I'm a bit confused as how do they know this already before the lymph nodes have been looked at? Anyway, now awaiting surgery date and a million questions going on in my head............ my kids are taking this quite badly, as I was able to keep most of the last lot of bad news from them; this time thats impossible. BTW I work full time as a teacher in a primary school, so am used to stress but this is quite different!
ADD ON: now had the WLE & SLNB and although very sore, doing well. No results yet
*UPDATE* results showed matastises in lymph nodes
Now had full left axillary lymph node removal .......... feeling v v sore and also almost straight away got an infection!! Got to see Prof. On 13th august for the latest resukt to see how many nodes affected..
