My husband had Mohs on his temple when they thought it was squamous cell. It was that doctor who felt it was malignant melanoma and sent the biopsy to another lab.  The first lab had erroneous findings TWICE. The second lab saw the "spindle cells" right away.  The surgeon was very concerned that much time had elapsed since the first wrong biopsy...about a year had gone by without any treatment.  He went in for surgery. It was same day for him and because it was on his face, they couldn't put him totally out. If they had to intubate him, the air hose would have interfered with the surgeon. So they gave him that twilight sleep stuff.   He remembered nothing, however.  He had a plastic surgeon lined up to finish the job since it was on his face and they had to do skin grafts.  He healed very nicely and it's very hard to see any scarring, although immediately after the surgery he looked like his face had gone through a windshield!

Now, they will probably tell you to have checks with a dermatologist every 4 to 6 months for a while, and then they'll spread it out to every year.  My husband actually had full body CTs once a year for about 3 or 4 years.  They may tell you that there is no "if you make it past 5 years you're home free" situation with melanomas, but certainly, the longer you go without more popping up, the better.  You may never get another one or one could pop up tomorrow. The thing is, you now know what to look for and you'll always be on top of it.

Interestingly enough, when my husband had his stroke, the first thing the doctors thought it was caused by a burst brain metastisis from that melanoma. But they searched and searched and saw nothing related to a melanoma and no metatsisis at all.  The stroke's cause is still a mystery.  The point is, this will now always be part of your medical history and you need to tell docs about it whenever you see someone new.  You are so smart to have taken care of this immediately, trust me on that!  I'm so glad this news is good!!!! 

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Q) forgot to ask. the Lymph node biopsy. Are they going to do something called 'sentinal node'? They will inject a dye near the lesion(s) and see which lymphnode is closest to where the melanoma is. They take that one out and test it. If it's clear, then nothing spread. In the past, they'd take out a bunch of nodes, not knowing which one to test. This way, they only do one node -- the first one in line (thus 'sentinal') The injection may burn, but maybe they'll do that when you are knocked out. Sometimes they do what they call a Wide Lateral Excision, where they remove tissue around where the original melanoma was, just to make sure there aren't any rogue melanoma cells hanging out, waiting to erupt! That's my knowledge in a nutshell.

(Wendy)-I asked alot of questions about a Sentinal node biopsy too. He said in the past, it was a given, now not always necessarily so-The closest place would be my armpit. Since it was so thin and the margin was so close it just wasnt necessary. I have the path report (cant find it right at this moment) and Ive totally researched it, The Clarks Scale, the numerical Tp scale.. Ive had an oncology nurse I work with and a radation oncology nurse that I know both go over the path results. They both totally concur with the Dr. and told me not to worry, This Was caught very very early. I was not lax on my research believe me.

Q) Oh, I know you wouldn't have been lax! Especially with your background (and Keene's) with the medical profession. I'm so glad things worked out!

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