How I was Diagnosed with MELANOMA! "I Knew Something was WRONG!"

[00:00:00]She said it didn't really look too concerning to her, but if I wanted to wait four months until my next skin check that I could, something was just telling me that I needed to biopsy it.

[00:00:11]the phone call actually was very quick.

[00:00:14]she just said, you have melanoma.

[00:00:16]It is invasive and deep margins.

[00:00:19]We don't know if it has spread to your lymph nodes.

[00:00:22]you know, you think of your family, your kids.

[00:00:24]the spot that I had was on the left side of my face, close to my ear here, it was a preexisting mole. So it had been there for as long as I can remember, which isn't necessarily typical with melanoma.

[00:00:37]Usually it's like a newer spot and I honestly didn't know much about skin cancer at all.

[00:00:44]The previous year that I was diagnosed, I had had my first skin check, which resulted in two precancerous moles, and I had to have surgeries on those.

[00:00:52]I just noticed that this spot had looked darker than my other moles. I wouldn't say it was very big, it wasn't really presenting. And a lot of the melanoma criteria just maybe a little bit darker than the rest.

[00:01:06]and I had a separate dermatology appointment for, for rosacea.

[00:01:12]And I had just brought it up to her at that appointment. And I said, can you just take a look at this one mole that I think just looks a little bit dark to me?

[00:01:20]she was even hesitant.

[00:01:21]She's kind of. She even said she's hesitant to biopsy on the face specifically because for cosmetic reasons. But I did push for that.

[00:01:29]and then I found out it was melanoma.

[00:01:33]That phone call was something that is etched in my mind forever.

[00:01:38]So we are going to refer you to oncology. We're going to refer you to plastic surgeon.

[00:01:44]And we also are going to have to get a sentinel lymph node biopsy to see if the cancer has spread further.

[00:01:51]And then the phone call kind of ended. And I immediately cried.

[00:01:56]I just, you know, you kind of think of all the bad things.

[00:01:59]Like everything kind of rushes through your head at once, there was just so many thoughts going through my head, and the not knowing the stage was also very scary.

[00:02:09]you just go in your thoughts and you just kind of spiral. And that's exactly what happened that day.

[00:02:14]it was a Friday. So I was like, if I don't call them now, I probably not going to get any answers until at least Monday.

[00:02:21]I just was very scared hearing that I had two precancerous moles the year before was even kind of scary too, but this took it to a whole nother level.

[00:02:34]I just, I think there was just so many thoughts going through my head, and the not knowing the stage was also very scary.

[00:02:44]You know, I just was left with, we know it's invasive, but we don't know how invasive.

[00:02:48]I actually went directly on a Facebook melanoma group, and a lot of people were talking about the biopsy report. And the biopsy report will reveal something called a Breslow depth.

[00:02:59]And that also sometimes can give you a little bit more clarity as to how deep we're talking about the melanoma. It also gives things a couple more things in pathology that help you understand maybe a little bit if it's more invasive than a little bit less invasive.

[00:03:18]And so I really called back to kind of get some clarity on that. And then I asked for a copy of my biopsy report to be emailed to me, which they did right away. And so I was able to get a little bit more clarity through that.

[00:03:34]I actually was sitting on a borderline from stage one A to stage one B based off of that biopsy report, Mine said it was 0.6, but it wasn't able to get the edge of the margins, meaning it could have been bigger or deeper than 0.6. And that's why they were going to do a sentinel lymph node biopsy.

[00:03:56]when I did call them, I kind of said, you know, we're we're on a Friday here. How how close are we looking. Because this is something that I want to try to get done immediately.

[00:04:08]thankfully come Monday I was able to get a lot more answers. I was able to book both of my oncology appointment that day and my plastic surgeon consult.

[00:04:19]And then we were able to get me into surgery. I think within like a week and a half after I got that phone call.

[00:04:25]during that plastic surgeon consult, he was able to kind of tell me how large this may be.

[00:04:33]once I saw everything after the fact, it was still very shocking. And so I was a little bit prepared by that consult.

[00:04:41]But I also was very shocked at the same time waking up from surgery.

[00:04:46]I had a really reframe my mindset to say, this is something that's this is a good day. You know, it is a scary day and all the feelings were involved with it. But this was a day that I was going to remove cancer from my face.

[00:05:02]so the first step was that I had to go to the hospital to do the sentinel lymph node mapping.

[00:05:08]And so what they do is they so this was prior to surgeries, I had to go to the hospital and then travel to the plastic surgeons office from there.

[00:05:17]they inject this. I think it's kind of like a radioactive type dye into your face. I call it a blue dye.

[00:05:24]That was extremely painful. They even said, did anyone prepare you for how painful this was going to be?

[00:05:30]And I said, no.

[00:05:33]it was very, very painful. I had to have four injections of this dye go into my face surrounding where the tumor was.

[00:05:42]And then I had to wait a while and then I had to go under.

[00:05:47]it basically lights up in in this machine to see where that dye is draining to, to the nearest lymph node.

[00:05:55]And then that's how they know which lymph nodes to take, depending on where it drained to from that area where the tumor is.

[00:06:02]So in my case it drained to this lymph node here, which is just right by my ear there. So it was kind of good news because it meant that they could pretty much do one incision all the way down from, you know, taking out the cancer and then all the way down to removing the lymph node.

[00:06:20]He did draw on my face exactly where how much he was going to be taken out. And my husband took a picture of it for me.

[00:06:27]So I couldn't see. And he showed me and I was just like, oh my goodness.

[00:06:31]Like, that's a big chunk of my face that's being cut out.

[00:06:34]I think I was just focusing on the positives as much as I could.

[00:06:37]we did have to wait for pathology to come back on the sentinel lymph node biopsy. So They told me it was going to be about seven days before I got those results back.

[00:06:46]So I woke up and like anybody waking up from anesthesia, I was a little out of it. But I definitely like the first thing was let me see my face.

[00:06:56]I still was shocked, even knowing that I knew it was going to be big.

[00:06:59]I was just shocked how much they had to cut my face, I deal with a lot of head pain. I actually have a rare condition called new daily persistent headache, where I woke up with a headache almost five and a half years ago, and it's never gone away since then.

[00:07:14]And I also was dealing with occipital neuralgia as well, which is the occipital areas like the base of your skull.

[00:07:21]when I was recovering from surgery, it was very difficult because I already was dealing with head pain and then having, you know, my face, operated on and a pretty big incision.

[00:07:33]It, you know, obviously furthered the pain.

[00:07:35]I did actually feel very alone during this time, because I don't think anyone really, truly understood in my personal life what this was like recovering in my personal life was was very isolating because I just had a lot of people feeding me the positives and that was great. But I also wanted to have people acknowledge my feelings that this also could be not the end of my journey.

[00:07:58]I immediately dove into the melanoma community of, you know, just the online community through Facebook and Instagram.

[00:08:06]hearing other people's stories, success stories, other people's frustrations or nervousness, anxiousness, all those things really just kind of helped me get by the seventh day came, I thought, okay, well, certainly I'm going to here today.

[00:08:20]They said max, and I didn't hear. And so I had called them because I'm just going, you know, don't make me wait another day. I'm like, maybe they got the results and they haven't had a chance to call me yet. But the anxiousness and, you know, the uncertainty was just really eating me up. And I thought, I can't wait another day.

[00:08:43]I can't wait another day. I'm going to call them and they're going to have the results. And I called them and they said, unfortunately we haven't got them yet, but we promise you, we will call you as soon as we do. And I'm thinking tomorrow's Friday. If I don't hear tomorrow, then I'm going to have to wait probably through the weekend.

[00:09:01]And we're talking nine, ten days at this point.

[00:09:04]so thankfully I did hear that following day I was in the parent pickup line picking up my kids from school, I got the phone call and my heart dropped.

[00:09:14]I answered and it was my plastic surgeon. And he said, Cheryl, I have your results and it's great news. And I just was able to just breathe.

[00:09:25]he just said, your pathology came back and it was not in your lymph nodes, so go celebrate.

[00:09:31]and I just immediately said, mommy just got the phone call, and I don't have I'm cancer free.

[00:09:37]I don't have any more cancer in my body.

[00:09:39]even though you get that good news, we focus on that good news, but there is still fear of reoccurrence.

[00:09:45]usually every year is a milestone celebrated that, you know, the cancer hasn't returned.

[00:09:51]I remember talking to my oncologist and telling him, how would I know any of the signs that it would metastasize?

[00:09:59]Because I'm already dealing with a headache 24/7.

[00:10:02]A lot of melanoma will spread into the lungs.

[00:10:05]And I already have shortness of breath. I already have all those symptoms of people that would prompt them to go in and get something evaluated could I wake up tomorrow and have metastasis?

[00:10:15]every time I get a flare in my head, pain, I think, is this something different?

[00:10:20]Grew up in Arizona where our UV index is extremely high there was a lot of guilt. I think that came along with that diagnosis because I then thought about I caused this to myself, I think that I would maybe tell myself to feel a little bit less guilty.

[00:10:37]don't beat yourself up for something that you didn't really know about.

[00:10:41]it is what it is.

[00:10:41]This happened and we're going to get through Life is great It's going to be my three years, NED coming up on September 1st.

[00:10:51]I think my main focus now is advocacy work.

[00:10:54]I traveled to Washington, D.C., in March to advocate at Capitol Hill with the Melanoma Research Foundation.

[00:11:01]I was able to make a really great impact of change, talking to legislative people about melanoma funding I also became an ambassador for the Melanoma Research Foundation. They have a program called Sun Aware, which is a kid program, a K through five program that I'm trying to get into a curriculum in some of the districts Arizona is one of the states where they still allow parental consent to use tanning beds for minors, and I would love to try to change that this is impacting a lot of millions and millions of people.

[00:11:35]I also had in total now eight atypical dysplastic nevus’ is removed.

[00:11:42]I have also had one squamous cell carcinoma as well. That was a year after my melanoma diagnosis So all in all, I just turned 40 a few days ago and I've had eight atypical precancerous moles removed one squamous cell carcinoma and one melanoma.

[00:12:00]So nine surgeries total.

[00:12:02]the first two years I had skin checks every three months, and then I graduated to every six months now, which will probably be for the rest of my life.

[00:12:09]educate yourself as much as possible.

[00:12:11]Aim at melanoma is a great resource and their website for really accurate and up to date information.

[00:12:18]connecting with other people is not only less isolating in your new journey, but also informative and educational so that also is something I share a lot to people is, you know, a lot of times once you're diagnosed with skin cancer, it typically isn't the last one that you're diagnosed with.

[00:12:36]I know that my journey hasn't ended as All I can do moving forward is preventing, you know, future damages to my skin.

[00:12:43]I encourage people to just protect their skin so they don't have to go through what I've gone through.