(no subject)
My sister was diagnosed with malignant melanoma today. They tested a suspicious mole a few days ago, and the lab reports came back this morning. She meets with the surgeon tomorrow. They're going to take out a good-sized chunk from her shoulder and remove the lymph node in her armpit. Its Clark level, which measures how deep the malignancy has gone, is scaled from 1-5, with 1 being the shallowest. Hers was a 5, which means it had actually made it through the dermis and into the fatty tissue. They're not sure what stage it's at right now. Best case right now is IIB, but if anything turns up in that lymph node it will be a III. Here's to hoping they'll be able to avoid chemo.
The irony of this is that she's the dark-skinned brunette, not a redhead. If anyone in the family was going to get skin cancer it was generally assumed it would be my brother or me. She's only really had one bad sunburn in her life. She brought that up to the doctor, and he suggested that while that sunburn may have originally caused it, her recent pregnancy and the subsequent hormone changes likely was what activated it.
Her mother-in-law heard about it this morning and immediately drove up from San Diego to help out. My parents aren't dealing with it very well. My mother used to work in the oncology ward at the hospital where, from all she could see, everyone who got cancer died a painful death. Generally the ones that get better didn't end up in her wing. She, however, understands the medical terminology my sister doesn't and I think takes comfort from knowing exactly what's going on. My dad's doing the worst. His best friend Leo, the best man at his wedding, died from the same thing. It happened very quickly and he didn't find out about it until several months after the fact.
That's all I know for now. I'll post more after I actually get to talk to her.
The irony of this is that she's the dark-skinned brunette, not a redhead. If anyone in the family was going to get skin cancer it was generally assumed it would be my brother or me. She's only really had one bad sunburn in her life. She brought that up to the doctor, and he suggested that while that sunburn may have originally caused it, her recent pregnancy and the subsequent hormone changes likely was what activated it.
Her mother-in-law heard about it this morning and immediately drove up from San Diego to help out. My parents aren't dealing with it very well. My mother used to work in the oncology ward at the hospital where, from all she could see, everyone who got cancer died a painful death. Generally the ones that get better didn't end up in her wing. She, however, understands the medical terminology my sister doesn't and I think takes comfort from knowing exactly what's going on. My dad's doing the worst. His best friend Leo, the best man at his wedding, died from the same thing. It happened very quickly and he didn't find out about it until several months after the fact.
That's all I know for now. I'll post more after I actually get to talk to her.