On 1/24/2007 Yacheezes wrote:
my husband was dg. with anal melanoma last feb.06 in april he had resectioning abdoimal surgury a stoma, they send him home and told him to wait no other treatment because it usu. don't help . he was having pains in his side at 6 mo. checkup and a pet scan revealed nodules in his lungs .now on feb. 8th we go back to ann arber for options . he said he is refusing treatment of any more majors surgury, from everything i have read which is not a lot because most doctors have never heard of anal malanoma maybe 500 cases reported nothing shows any promise. i do try to keep faith and i also try to be strong for my husband who really seems to be ok. i dont want him to go thought more surgurys if they dont help. he has already been though a major one and it was not fun, but on the other hand what if by some miracle it would help, because it is so rare the information is limited with the average life span at 15 months.i do pray for god to give us all strenght because this is bad stuff and i do believe the mind can help heal if we keep the faith
i should have put down metastic anal melanoma because i guess there ia a differents anal melanoma is much more aggressive and does not respond to chem or rad. the just keep cutting it out. they want to try interferon but it will prob. not do any good . so do you try to enjoy the days you have let or get treatments that you know are going to make you sick..we have been seen in AnArbor a few times but we are just a number to be pushed on to the next dr. to see if he has any new ideas. not that they are bad there, but they figure they know the outcome so they just try to help the patients they think have a better outcome the more logical medical way of thinking.anal melanoma is very rare and is usually mistaken for hemorroidsa often more in women.