On 12/5/2006
Cooper1 wrote:
Hi Amanda, This September I had a mole removed from my arm and it turned out to be Melanoma. I am only 31 years and of course FREAKED OUT!!!! I was a stage 1B Melanoma. I had a surgery where they removed a wider margin of tissue around where the melanoma mole was plus also had the Sentinal Node Biopsy. The SNL kind of sucked but I'm glad that I did it. What they do is inject some radioactive fluid into your body and watch/map which lympnode the Melanoma could have drained into. This took over 2.5 hours for me because the fluid was moving SO SLOW. It sucked because there are these huge cameras really close to your body and all I could do was lay there- not fun. If I ever have to do that again- I'm going to make sure I bring someone with me into the room- so at least I have someone to talk to. Once they locate the lymphnode that the Melanoma may drained into they marked it on your body. So then I went into surgery where they removed the tissue around the Melanoma and also removed the marked Lymphnode. I woke up and my mom drove me home. I was sore for a couple days but really felt ok. My test results showed that there was no evidence of any Melanoma cells in the surrounding tissue nor was it in my lymphnode. YAHOO!!!! Now it's been a month later and yesterday I had my first appointment with an Oncologist. My surgeon recommended I see an Oncologist just to follow up. I talked with him and he wants me to have a PET SCAN to make sure that the Melanoma hasn't spread to any organs in my body. SCARY!!! I started crying like a baby but he told he's 85% sure that he won't find anything and that I have an excellent chance that the Melanoma was cured with surgery. If you want to email me personally you can reach me at --- Message edited by CancerCompass staff: for personal protection, email address removed. Please review CancerCompass Member Guidelines at
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I am really glad to see that your surgeon sent you to an Oncologist for further follow. Please make sure you have regular follow up and get pet scans as well as blood tests for your LDH level. This was never done for my daughter, who had a mole biopsied and then removed with a wider incision and a sentinal node biopsy. They said they got it all and never referred her for any follow, except with her dermatologist that watched other moles. Apparently, melanoma can also travel through your blood stream, which is the case with my daughter. The melanoma has now metastisized and has spread to her lungs, liver, spine, hip, pelvis and leg bones. I only wish we had a doctor that would have sent her for some follow up. I wish you the best on your further treatment and tests.