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Share your quitting journey

Day 55 and I've taken a nosedive.

Robin-K
Member
0 1 3
Well I'm waiting excitingly for my 60 days to get here! I've decided that this has been probably the worse 60 days of my life I've had in years! Things just keep going downhill for me. This is a super long blog post. Sorry. This is the letter I've emailed to everyone on my facebook and other friends and family. So here it goes.... The good news is I'm still SMOKE FREE!

I had a biopsy taken last Friday from a mole on the inside of my thigh by my knee. I found out Monday I have malignant melanoma. Good news is it's Stage 1. They will check the rest of my body this next week. I do have many moles on my back and I'm not sure if they have changed at all. I will have surgery Tuesday to remove the one on my leg and maybe more on my back. I guess I feel a little shocked and maybe not to surprised. I have psoriasis which is a immune system disorder. So I fit right in to the category for melanoma. I've had psoriasis now for 17 years. Some of you may have noticed it on my arms and wondered what it was. Some times psoriasis gets better with age and some times it gets worse. For me it's getting worse. It now covers about 75% of my body. The only way I can describe it is feels like your skin is on fire when you are having a flare up. Or like having 2nd degree burns. Flare-ups can be caused by stress or an injury as well. I can get flare-up when I get my period or even allergy season can cause it. I also have psoratic arthritis in my ankles, knees, hips, wrists and hands. This to is getting worse as I get older. So with all the drugs I have been on for my psoriasis I wasn't surprised. I had UVB and PUVA treatments back in the 90's which they have you sign a form saying you could get skin cancer from this treatment. This is a huge machine like stand up tanning bed. You only go in this machine for about 1 minute if that. I remember my first treatment. I think it took me longer to get undressed then it did for the treatment. I remember thinking wow what good is this going to do. Well about 4 hours later I found out! My friend said what has happened to your face? I went in the bathroom and I had big white circles around my eyes from the goggles. I was pretty red. Remember this was less then a minute in this machine and I had to go 3 times a week. Then after so long that stopped working for me. So we tried more creams and ointments. Nothing happened. Back in 2001 they finally put me on a little yellow pill called Methotrexate. This is a chemo drug used to treat breast cancer patients. Also good for athritis patients. Well this drug worked. I was finally cleared of psoiasis and my body felt and looked great! I was thrilled and very happy! Problem is I couldn't stay on this drug after two years on it I had reached the limit you are to have per lifetime of this drug. So much for that fun! Then they came out with a new drug called Embrel. I'm sure some of you have seen the commercials of this on TV. When this first came out my insurance wouldn't cover it. It was $1500.00 a injection! After being on the market for a couple years my insurance did cover it. This is a biologic drug. I'm not going to go into that part. You can google it if you want to know. Anyway I was on this giving myself shots in my stomach area for 6 months. It didn't do anything for me. It's helped thousands of people though so that I'm happy for. So I haven't been on anything now for close to a 1 1/2 yrs now. I live on Aleve and Advil. Thank goodness for those drugs. I have been to a rheumatologist a year ago and have another appt. this next Friday to see her again. They wanted me to go on Raptiva, Humara or Remacade. This drugs scared me to much so I didn't go on them. I'm glad because that Raptiva they just had a news report on about a month ago and have stopped it because it was killing more people then helping them! So thank goodness I didn't start that treatment! So you can see why I'm very leary of taking these. The problem is I may have no choice. If I want to save my joints I may have to. So now you know more about my psoriasis. Now you can see also why I'm not to surprised at the results of my mole biopsy. Cancer runs in my family. My oldest sister died at 57 from uterine cancer. My mother had colon cancer. She caught it early and was in remission for 18 years till it returned to her liver in her 80's and she passed at 81. So now we have a new cancer in the family which my other two sisters ages 63 and 57 are not to happy about. The good thing is that I caught it early! The key to melanoma is catching it early! The scary part is I have cancer at 45. When I got this stupid disease (psoriasis) I remember thinking this can't be true! I was terrified! If I can live with this disease and I can quit smoking I think I can beat anything! I have always lived my life trying to enjoy each day because of the loss of my parents at young age I learned you better. You never know what news you could be given the next day. So I try and stay pretty positive and happy. I think most people would say I'm cheerful. Well maybe not my daughter. lolol.. She knows I love her dearly and every thing I have done and keep doing is for her to live a happy life. I happen to be the lucky one in this family who is the bad guy. Some one has to be the bad guy. Bryan she has him wrapped around her little finger like many daughters can do. Including myself! lolol.. I just know some day she will respect me because of the choices and ways I have brought her up. Hey she is a teenager right! lol.. I luv you Alyssa Mary! I will keep you all informed of what is coming up for doctors appts. I have many scheduled. I also have a chest x-ray which is in question which I should find out about more this next week. I'm hoping it's just scare tissue there from a previous lung biopsy back in 2002. That's a whole other story which if that should change I will fill you in on all of that! This note is already to long as it is. Thanks for all your support and prayers. I feel his presence here with me.

All for now,
Robin
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