Newly Diagnosed Alot Of Questions

Hi

I hope this doesn't get to lengthy but this is all so new and overwhelming.  I am a 46 y/o female and I had a mole removed from my lower abdomen (by the belly button) recently that came back .46 breslow and clarks level II, was referred to Moffitt Cancer Center (fortunately I live only 20  minutes from there).  Met with cutaneous surgical oncologist and he informed he would do a wle.  At that point I asked him to remove some other moles that concerned me (4) and he said ok.  He removed three and they came back fine but during the WLE he removed the 4th one that is on my upper abdomen and that came back 1.1 breslow and clarks level 4. The first wle came back with no more melanom in surrounding are.  So now within 1 month I have been diagnosed with two (2) malignant melanomas which has floored me. Now I have to have another wide local excision and this time a sentinel lymph node biopsy. When I asked my surgeon if they are going to do any xrays or scans he said no they only do that if it comes back in the lymph nodes or if it was thicker. 

I am a also a 22 year Ovarian Cancer Survivor and I attribute my survival to a very aggresive gynelogical oncologist who did surgery, scans, follow up and evenpreventive chemo. So I strongly believe in being as aggressive as possible when fighting something.

So my questions are:

Why do they not do xrays or scans, do other facitilies do them prior to finding it in the lymph nodes or for 1.1 breslows.

I have about 4 other moles close to the area that they did the biopsy on but when I asked the surgeon if he was going to take those when they do the WLE he said no, is that normal?

 Has anyone had any type of follow up treatement even if it is not in the lymph nodes or spread (any type of preventive chemos, vaccines, etc.)

Of course now I have some other moles I want removed and biopsied and my surgeon said I need to go back to my dermatologist to do that which takes weeks to get appts, is that the norm to go back to your dermatologist while you are still be treated by your cutaneous oncologist?

Is there anyone else who goes to moffitt and can you share you feelings thought about there cutaneous oncology program.

 Thank you all so much in advance, like I said my head is spinning but I want to make sure everything that can be done is being done as I will not just lay down for this :-)

Take care,

Lena

I definitely know how you feel. I was diagnosed last year. Your first primary sounds very good. Sounds like you are at a very low stage with good prognosis.

 In my case, they did the biopsy, came back as mel. Then I met with a surgeon and they performed the surgery within a month. The removed a few lymph nodes and did a WLE.

 My margins were clean and lymph nodes were negative, so I met with an oncologist and got a ct scan. I ended up being stage 2b... There aren't too many treatment options for stage 1/2 except for surgery. They can't really monitor if the drug is effective when you have no evidence of disease. Does that make sense?

 I got a CT scan and I meet with a derm and my Oncologist every 3 mos. Continue to check your skin and take off whetever makes you uncomfortable and pay attention to your body and you should be just fine.

Sounds like you caught this early! Goodluck!

Hope that helped : )