Safe in the Sun: From Heel to Healed: My Melanoma Survival Story

Easter Day, April 8, 2012

Happy Easter!  He is Risen!

This morning, I was happy to go to the Sunrise Easter Service at Lake Tallavana with Kris, Cathy and Bobby.  It was a great feeling to see the sunrise, feel the warmth on my face and hear the words of the Preacher.  What an amazing start to this beautiful Easter Day…

I have been thinking a lot about strength….How strong am I?  How strong is the average person?  Could you endure 12 months of feeling like you have the flu!?  To Save Your Life, I am certain you could…

We are 4 months into the shots!  I like to think of it as 1/3 of the way done!!! This sounds a lot better! LOL!  It has been a lot tougher than I ever imagined. It is amazing what your mind and body will endure when facing a test!  This experience has awakened me but I am still learning about fear.  Fear of the unknown…fear of dying.  I have been strengthening my relationship with God.  Faith over Fear….but, easier said than done.  I will continue to pray for strength today and always…

I am keeping this short…want to go hang out with Kris and Brutus!

XOXO!

2/18/12

Well…we have been doing the shots for about 6 weeks now!  Seems like time has flown but not really.  These shots have been such a pain in the butt (or should I say: pain in the stomach! LOL!).  One of the worst parts of all of this is dealing with the Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies! I am quickly learning that they care more about MONEY than LIFE/HEALTH!!!! UGH!!! I guess just another lesson in the roller coaster that I am on.

We do the shots 3 x per week on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings.  And when I say “we”, Kris actually gives me the injection.  I have yet to conquer that fear but am confident that I will soon!  I can watch him do it but I just can’t seem to inject the needle into my stomach myself.  UGH!!!!  BUT, Kris is VERY gentle and does a great job!  I joke with him that he should go to Medical School!  Who knew Kris would be a great Nurse! LOL!!!  Dr. Goodman has a good ring to it! LOL!!! JK!

The shots are 16 million units of Interferon.  So, I DEFINITELY do not feel as bad as the intravenous Interferon  I did for the month of December but the side effects still get me!  It feels like a hangover 3 days a week but without the fun from the night before (nausea, headache, fatigue…most of you have had a hangover…LOL!)

Well…I just wanted to give you all a brief update….

Only 41 weeks to go….

XOXO!!!

-Catie

1/15/12

Happy New Year!!! I hope all of my Family and Friends had a great Holiday Season and a Wonderful New Year!

As you know, I finished the IV infusions on January 4th!  Kris’s birthday! It was a GREAT day!  I had about 5 days off (it was NICE to JUST start to feel better)  but now it is on to the shots…

I completed the first week of shots (3 x per day, 16 million units!  A lot better than 33 million units everyday!:)  My Oncologist had me come to the office M, W and F so they could “show me” how to do the shots!  Mom, Kris and Cathy came the first day with me.  I had my “survivor gang” there! LOL!  It is nice to have 2 “back-up shot givers” if Kris is ever out of town, etc.  I am confident Cathy could do it but Mom…not so much.  Mom says, “I don’t like to see my Baby get shots!!” (in the Mary Moss voice).  Smmhhh!:) <tear>  I am still her “baby!”:)

Anyway, the Oncology Nurse really wanted me to give the shot to myself.  We tried to work up to it but I just couldn’t do it.   I KNOW it is all mental. I would watch her do it and was fine, I just could not give it to myself!  I am hoping that as I get used to it, I will be able to.  For now, WISH KRIS AND CATHY GOOD LUCK! LOL!!!!

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I am soo thankful for my sister, Jen and my best friend, Tricia!  Not that this is possible, but I think my cancer has strengthen our bonds.  They have both been there for me through thin and now THICK! LOL!  Jen knows JUST how to lift my spirits and she keeps my Faith strong!  Tricia makes me laugh (and cry! a good cry!) and reminds me that friends can be family too.  I love them both and THANK GOD that I have them in my life.  (This is a picture of Jen and I doing “The Dive!” LOL! Sister Joke!) (PS-You see a beer there, this is an old picture!  Haven’t had alcohol in 6 weeks!

Catie and Tricia! BFF!!!!!

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This leads me to my husband, Kris!  He is truly an AMAZNG man!  I am in awe of his strength every day! He refuses to give up, let cancer take over our lives and is always “moving forward”.  Whenever I start to “go backwards”, he is there to turn me around. We don’t talk about the “c word” a lot but I think that is the BEST thing for me! He is ALWAYS staying positive (just like MOM) and REALISTIC!  I think that is the BEST thing for me too!  I admit…sometimes I DO ask for A LOT and I pull the cancer card. NOW, Kris says, “Well…you don’t technically have cancer so what’s your next excuse!” LOL!  It always makes me laugh and cheers me up!  I look forward to a lifetime with Kris and cannot wait for God to bless us with children (our day will come soon….patience!)

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I went back to work this past Monday!  It was SOOOOO great! I have a whole new appreciation for my job. I LOVE my job and not many people get to say that.  I feel very blessed and humbled by my position at work and by my co-workers. I have the BEST boss and some of the most AMAZING Staff and co-workers a girl could ask for!  To them, I will be eternally grateful!

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Well….I am going to end this post.  Kris is taking me to Carrabba’s for dinner! YUM!  I love being on the “Interferon diet!” I can eat pasta and NOT gain weight!

Until my next post, wish me luck! Only 46 weeks of shots left!!!!

XOXOXOXOXO!

~Catie

OMG!!!!!!! I DID it!!!!  I finished 4 1/2 weeks of intravenous Interferon at TMH.  It was not very fun but definitely worth it!  I must say, the experience was kinda uplifting.  I LOVED spending time with Cathy, Kris’s Mom.  She kept me positive and we even laughed some days.  My Mom, Jen and Kris have been wonderful too!  They ALWAYS know how to keep my spirits UP!  I met some very inspirational people during this past month.  I guess it was good just to talk to people who could truly understand what I am going through (there were 2 chemo chairs per room so we usually had a “guest”.)  There are many cancer survivors and fighters out there! I PRAY for all of those wonderful cancer “survivors” that I met in chemo outpatient.  That brings me to the Nurses. The picture above is me, Cathy and 2 of my chemo nurses.  They took SUCH GREAT care of me.  After a month of daily infusions, 5 days a week, we got to know them pretty well.  They too, had survivor stories and gave me strength during a very tough process.  I will always be grateful and thankful for the Nurses and to everyone who helped me through this (I think the Pharmacist had a crush on me! LOL!  JK!)

Now it is on to the shots, 3x per week for 11 months! GEEZ!  I had my first shot on Monday.  The Nurse in my Oncology office showed us how to do it (Mom, Cathy and Kris were there to learn:)  Kris and I will start the shots at home on Monday, January 16th (YEAH!!! No more going to THM or the Oncology office!)  The shot was not very painful at all but it hit me hard about 3 hours later.  I am hoping my body will adjust, we will see. I am literally taking one day at a time.

Until my next post, I hope you are all enjoying LIFE!  Love to you all!

12/16/2011

Hello All,

I apologize it has taken me a while to update you all.  I have literally been sleeping, and sleeping and sleeping….zzzzzzzzzz.  But, as Aunt Cathy says, “Sleeping is Healing, so Sweet Dreams!:)”

I made it through the first 2 weeks of my Interferon treatment.  As you probably know, I receive treatment everyday, M-F for about an hour (the Interferon takes 20 minutes and the bag of fluids takes about an hour).  It has definitely been an experience!  For some reason, I thought I would have super human powers and the treatment would not affect me too terribly bad but it has NOT BEEN FUN!!!!   Imagine the worst flu bug you have EVER had, multiply it by 100, add an IV in your arm and then you will JUST begin to understand how I have been feeling these past 2 weeks.  I had a few mini breakdowns but NOTHING that will stop me!  This is helping to save my life so HOW could I quit!!???  I speak of the physical effects but this has been an emotional battle too.  Like my Doctors say, either you can beat cancer or you can let it beat you!  I choose to BEAT IT!

For those of you that are familiar with Tallahassee, you have most likely seen or been to TMH (Tallahassee Memorial Hospital).  Have you even wondered why you cannot park in that small parking lot in the very front, conveniently located to the front entrance but instead had to drive around and around in that big parking garage hoping to find an empty spot!?  Well, THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS!  That very convenient front parking lot is reserved for chemo patients.  And, yes, I am officially a chemo patient! UGH!

Since my cancer diagnosis, I have been trying to appreciate everyday and every situation.  This has forever changed me and Life is Short!  I would NEVER be able to get through this without the love and support of my family and friends.  A HUGE THANK YOU to Kris’s Mom, Cathy.  She is a GODSEND!  She has driven me to my chemo appointments everyday (except the first one, Mom took me, thank you and love you Mom!)  She is soooooo inspirational and tells me almost everyday how well I am handling this (some days I think she is crazy but hey, I’ll take it).  She has gone above and beyond and is happy to help me with whatever I need. For that, I will be ETERNALLY grateful.  I also cannot leave out Kris, Mom and Jen. They have watched me go through this and have given me strength more than they know.  I started my chemo treatments on December 6^th.  While in the past, this was a VERY SAD day for me, I have since turned it into a positive!  Granny is watching down on me and making sure everything is going smoothly (Hey, I KNOW she has some pull up there!  This is Granny we are talking about! LOL!)  As I type this, tears come to my eyes but they are no longer tears of sadness but tears of Joy!

I cannot finish this post without mentioning Imerman Angels (Google them and check them out!)  They are an organization that I happen to stumble upon (really, God meant for me to find it!)  They “match” current cancer patients with “angels” or people who have survived your same type and level of cancer.  A few months ago, I was matched with my “angel”, Kim.  She is 3 years cancer free and her life is “back to normal.”  She has given me tips and advice that have been invaluable! She TRULY knows what I am going through and I have felt a connection with her that is unexplainable.  I can only hope that one day, we will meet and look back on all of this while sipping Margaritas on the beach (with SPF 50 on and under an umbrella of course! LOL!)

I hope you are all enjoying every minute of everyday.

Until my next post….I LOVE and MISS you all!

Skin Safety in the Sunshine State:
From Heel to Healed-My Survival Story

My hope is that this blog will eventually bring awareness to the dangers of improper sun exposure and tanning bed use.  Skin Cancer is DEADLY!

For now, I just want a “voice” to tell my family and friends what the latest news is in my whole cancer rollercoaster….Here I go….

What happens when a thirty something, social butterfly, fun-loving, happily married young lady is told she has Stage 3 Malignant Melanoma!??  Well….PANIC and then FEAR!

I will never forget that “dreaded call.”  It was August 5, 2011, the day before Jen’s bridal shower.  I had been to the Dermatologist that week for him to biopsy a spot on my heel that just hadn’t ever gone away (see more story below).  NEVER in a million years did I think that call would say, “Ms. Goodman, your pathology report showed that the biopsy is Malignant Melanoma, you have cancer.” I almost fainted!  CANCER!? I cannot have cancer! Cancer is what old people get. I am only 33!

Initially, once I gathered myself, I thought (as most do), ok, this will be ok.  Skin cancer is 100% curable, RIGHT!!?? WRONG! TOO MANY PEOPLE THINK SKIN CANCER IS CURABLE! IT IS NOT!

Let me start by telling you my entire “cancer story” (HOW did this happen?  HOW did you find it, etc, etc, etc, etc….) Last year, I began to notice what looked like a callous on my back right heel.  I thought, well I wear shoes that are 4 inches tall all the time so why should I not have a callous?! LOL!  The “callous” continued to get bigger and was raised.  I knew then I needed to get it checked out but just thought they would tell me exactly what I was thinking (a “callous”) and I would be scolded for wearing tall ass shoes to work every day (But hey, I am 5 feet tall so I need SOMETHING to make me look taller! LOL!)  That week, I called a Podiatrist.  WHO ELSE?!! A Podiatrist is an expert on feet and this was on my foot.  I saw him in October 2010 and he cut off the “callous” but said it was a “wart.” So, off I went with my “wart” cream to use until it was gone.  Well, needless to say, it never went away (after a tube of wart cream and 1,000 Band-Aids later).  SO, I went BACK to the Podiatrist and showed him.  ”WHY is this “wart” not going away, HOW do we get rid of it?” The Podiatrist said that we could remove it surgically from the root and that MAY solve the problem?  MAY solve the problem, NO!  Or he said I could contact a Dermatologist, if I had one established. DING! DING!  I called my Dermatologist the next day.

This is where the story really begins….the second I went back in the room with the Dermatologist, he knew this “wart” did NOT look right and he said it didn’t even look like a wart to him.  So, once again, the “wart” got cut off but this time, the Dermatologist sent it to the lab (THANK GOD!)  This was on Tuesday and by Friday (the day before Jen’s Bridal Shower); he called me with the “bad news.”

Now, where do we go from here?? <I will save you all from looking at the pictures of my heel throughout this journey!  Some of you may not be able to handle them but I do know that if you saw them, it would make you think twice about lying in a tanning bed or going into the sun without sunscreen (AT LEAST 30 SPF that protects from UVA and UVB rays!!!)>  SO…My first stop was to a surgeon here in Tallahassee.  He had to get the melanoma (“wart!” UGH!) out of my heel.  They would also need to do sentinel lymph node mapping (Sentinel lymph node mapping is a method of determining whether cancer has metastasized (spread) beyond the primary tumor and into the lymph system. The mapping procedure is used in conjunction with sentinel lymph node biopsy or dissection.)  The SLNM involved 4 VERY painful shots in my foot (NO numbing medicine, etc…, they need my body to react in its natural state-GEEZ!) and then the nuclear medicine would travel up my leg to the closest lymph nodes (there were 2 behind my knee). After I got over the excruciating pain (the Radiologist was SO cool and screamed out loud with me, he must have done this a time or 2! LOL!), it was actually very interesting to see on the monitor how this process worked. I could also see the silhouette of my legs (Thanks Granny and Mom for the stove pipe legs! LOL!)  Once we saw the 2 bright white spots (the lymph nodes behind my knee), the Radiologist marked them with a good old fashioned Sharpie black pen. Then, the surgeon would know where to go to get them out instead of guessing.  The SLNM and first surgery were on August 12^th, just a week after my diagnosis. Thank God they moved quickly!

Now, the waiting game…what would the pathology reports show!!???  Well, I think you all know the answer to that. 2 weeks later, we learned the cancer had not only spread (microscopically) to both the lymph nodes they removed, it still wasn’t all out of my heel (the biopsy margins didn’t show clear).  Needless to say, this was one of the toughest days that Kris and I have EVER experienced!!!

NOW WHAT-AGAIN!!!??  Off to the Oncologist (those scary Doctor’s that you hear about that only CANCER patients go to!) and Moffitt Cancer Center we go (over the past few months, Moffitt has become my 2^nd home!)….Let me first start by saying that Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa is amazing! It is like another world! I would PRAY that none of you would ever have to go there but if you do, you are in good hands.  For the next few weeks, we met with a team of Oncologists in the Cutaneous Dept. at Moffitt (Surgical Oncologist, Medical Oncologist, Plastic Surgeon, all the Nurses, the Social Worker, the lady over the Total Cancer Care Program, the wound vac nurse, etc., etc., etc., etc……) I would need another surgery to get the rest of the melanoma out of my heel.  OH, I forgot to mention about the whole skin graph thing!  Let me just say, Skin graphs are NOT fun. In the first surgery, they did a split-thickness skin graph.  They took the skin from my upper butt (YEAH, I need some fat taken from my large ass! LOL!) But, the first graph did not take. It didn’t matter anyway; they would “re-do” it in the second surgery.

The second surgery had me SOOOO nervous! I wasn’t sure why, I felt in very good hands. I guess I just couldn’t shake the nerves that morning. So, once we got all the housekeeping out of the way, they gave me a nice little “relaxant” in my IV and they said to ENJOY! J  Well, I did! I instantly felt like I just had 4 cocktails on a Friday night with the ladies! LOL!  I remember everything, the nurses wheeling me into the room and how it felt like an IGLOO!!!  Then, came the warm blower. This thing inserted right into your gown and blew warm air over your body! It was crazy!  The oxygen mask came over my face and I was out…I woke up in the recovery room looking at Mom and Kris.  I MADE IT!!!  The recovery room is still a bit foggy but I remember them telling everything to Mom and Kris, giving them instructions, etc. and I remember the Nurse was awesome! In the surgery, they removed the rest of the melanoma (about a baseball size out of my back right heel/foot-I used to have such CUTE feet-UGH! But, whatevs! As long as they got it all out and they DID!)  I had about a 9 inch scar that went from my lower abdomen up to the top of my hip.  This was where they took skin for the FULL-thick skin graph (NOT split-thickness this time!).  The plastic surgeon was nice enough to “save” my tattoo. He didn’t realize that I had a tattoo on my lower stomach (I KNOW, I KNOW! I got it in Cancun, Mexico on my High School graduation trip, I was only 18 so no lectures please! LOL!)  The Nurse said that the surgery room was laughing that he was making the sunset (he cut right below my sun tattoo)!  Isn’t it ironic that I have a tattoo of the sun yet have skin cancer most likely from the sun?!  God’s great sense of humor!  Needless to say, I have cuts, scars, holes, etc.. all over my body. But, I wouldn’t change it for the world! This is what God had planned for me so I must ride this rollercoaster, BUT JUST FOR A BIT LONGER!

Since the 2^nd surgery on Sept. 30^th, we have had good news (KNOCK ON WOOD!)  They did an ultrasound of the groin lymph nodes and that showed clean.  They DID get ALL of the melanoma out of my foot! YEAH!  The skin graph took and is healing more and more every day.

What I hope will be the “final push” in this cancer rollercoaster is treatment.  Since I am Stage 3a Melanoma, they offer a type of chemotherapy (Immunotherapy) treatment called Interferon.  Interferon is very long and difficult to explain so please just Google it.

I will start the intravenous treatment this Monday, December 5^th. It will be daily at the TMH Cancer Center for 4 weeks. Then, Kris will give me injections, 3 times a week, for 11 months!  So, I have a ways to go but know I CAN DO IT!!!

A few final thoughts for now…I say “final push” but I will NEVER be cured of my cancer. I am currently what is called NED (No Evidence of Disease) and hope to remain that way forever.

There is NO CURE for Melanoma.  EARLY DECTECTION is VERY VITAL!

PLEASE BE SAFE AND SMART in the SUN and NO TANNING BEDS!

I will keep you all posted as much as possible. Please understand that December will be a very difficult month for me (and Kris-BLESS HIS HEART-HE is AMAZING!) physically and emotionally.  You may not “hear” from me a lot but please know that WITHOUT YOU ALL, I WOULD NEVER BE ABLE TO DO THIS!!!

Until my next post….Best wishes to you all and I love you!