It is hard to believe that it has been three years since I was told that I had Stage 4 Melanoma – terminal cancer.
Within a few short months I had gone from a young woman, diagnosed a year prior with Stage 1 Melanoma, to a 22 year old with Stage 3 Melanoma, to finally hearing the worst news possible – I was Stage 4.
I was 22 years old and had already explored and worked in some of the most isolated places in the world and with the most exciting future ahead of me, to a 22 year old stripped of all my hopes and dreams and left to face my mortality.
Read MoreDear Melanoma has always been about sharing the rollercoaster that is Stage 4 Melanoma – the highest of highs, the lowest of lows, and everything in-between.
There is absolutely no denying that the last few months have had more lows than highs, and just when you are feeling that you are reaching the highs again you’re sent plummeting to reality.
Yesterday I shared my most recent scan results. They were largely positive after starting back on Keytruda and a dose of radiation to my ‘monster’ lesion that is just outside my pancreas. Everything appears stable. But one lesion on my adrenal gland has doubled inside and my LDH levels have increased again in the last 3 weeks. This lesion on my adrenal gland does not, and will not, respond to Keytruda, so our plan of action is to have some radiation in hope that it can be controlled.
Read MoreAs I sit on Facebook and read everyone’s reflections on 2015 and hopes for 2016, I find myself doing the same.
For me, 2015 marked a return to normality.
2014 was so up in the air for Serge and I. 2014 was amazing because we got married and we also travelled, but everything was overshadowed by my terminal prognosis, the reality of not responding to my initial treatment, and being told at the beginning of the year that I only had 3 months to live. Serge and I very much lived in the moment and spent as much time together as possible with Serge stopping work to make this happen.
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