i've come to my senses

Turns out I don't even need Lortab (so far). I am walking around just fine. They cut a nerve during surgery 4 years ago, and I haven't had feeling in the thigh since, so I'm sure that's helping. And they didn't mess with a muscle (they had to move one last time to cover up my artery). Anyhow, I am feeling great.

The Dr. said he had a pathologist looking at the tissue he was cutting out to make sure they got it all, and assured us we had clear margins. He said the tumor was hard to find, even after he had taken it out in a large chunk. I was pretty happy about that.

As he was cutting on some of the old scar tissue, he could tell the scar tissue wasn't getting any blood supply, so he went ahead and cut out the entire foot-long scar above the tumors. Just thought I would share some of these lovely images. And all my good news. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers, they seem to have really paid off. I am in great spirits.

Tomorrow afternoon we will see what the pathologist had to say. My guess is that if they only see cancer in the tumors, the Dr. will say we just do what they call 'watch and wait.' Scan every 3 months and see if I am a lucky one who has it taken care of by surgery. If it is in the nodes or leaking out of the tumors they might recommend some other type of treatment. I am finally informed enough (3 hours a day on the computer researching melanoma) to think that maybe watch and wait would be okay. It is not my first choice, but that is the standard of care. The problem I'm having is that the standard of care is not having great success. They think wait to use the toxic treatments until I need them (stage IV). And hope I don't need them.