Experiences of melanoma
Rory's story
Rory (42) discovered a mole that had blackened and gone "funny" on the right side of his chest below his nipple in May 2008 - didn't do anything until end of August - foolish - but that's the way it was - he has many moles, fair skinned, and had 3-4 moles removed "just in case" when he was 17 (1986) - he is not a sun-worshipper at all but spend his youth in Africa and did a lot of sailing.
All his treatment has happened in France because that is where we currently live - it may give everyone an idea of how things are done "supposedly" in the country that has the "best" cancer treatment stats in Europe.
As soon as he saw the GP he was referred to a Dermatologist (4 days later) who sent him for an excision within 2 hours with a skin surgeon. They took off the mole and sent it for analysis - a week later we had a call to come in for a Wide Excision as the results had come back as 4mm SSMM with nodular component and highly mitotic.
The wide excision was an overnight affair - scar about 15cm in Nov 2008. We were referred to the Institute Gustav Roussy in Paris where they did a full body CT scan, photographed everywhere (even the bottoms of his feet), various blood tests.
We then went religiously every 3 months for scans and dermatological observation - at our visit in July 2008 one of the junior interns palpated a deep node that she thought was a little bigger than normal - sent for an echograph which noted a slightly enlarged lymph node but nothing suspect - at our October check - at the echograph the Dr initially said all clear and then when I was insistent he look carefully at the deep node they had palpated 3 months earlier he decided it looked suspect - it pays to be insistent - he decided to do a fine needle aspiration on two nodes - the results were back in two days - positive one 9mm macroscopic and one microscopic - CT scan showed the macroscopic one only - We had a PET scan - nothing unexpected.
We had an axillary node removal at the beginning of Jan 10 - removed 7 nodes and only 2 were malignant - quite relieved for now - he still has a drain in 20 days later - generous with his lymph fluid - but his arm is quite stiff and thought he has no infection he has some nerve tingling and his muscles feel tight - he has done a bit of physio, but will now be doing more as the stitches have healed well - no lymphoedoema or seroma - but their policy is to leave the drain in as long as possible - the district nurse comes every day to change the dressing and record lymph flow - we feel this is a bit over the top but nerveless the care is good - he will be offered an adjuvant therapy on the 1st Feb - we are not sure yet which one/ones but either vaccine or chemo - we will keep the site posted - the care we have received from prevention to surgery has all been excellent - I will say that the reason the French have better treatment results is not so much because the treatments are better but because they are very rigorous - almost draconian (threatening to withdraw health cover etc) - with their routine scans/smears/check ups - so people are more aware of problems a bit earlier. But otherwise the care can be patchy as in UK - we were advised to go to Paris for our treatment.