Let me backtrack.
There is a new movement that forces us to ask ourselves, "Is My Cancer Different?" Maybe I would have answered differently had I not been diagnosed with melanoma already in my young age, I don't know, but now I want to scream it from the roof tops: MY cancer is different! Every cancer is different! The same cancer in different patients is different!
When people first find out about my history with melanoma they ask if I had to have chemo and radiation. I would have asked the same thing 4 years ago! However, we melanoma patients have had that frustrating conversation. You know the one, that heartbreaking conversation with the oncologist where he informs us that melanoma doesn't respond to the typical chemo cocktail.
I remember calling my Gran after that first meeting in New York, crying in the bathroom floor, because the doctor basically said the options are limited when it comes to stage 3 melanoma. They just can't treat our cancer like they do other cancers. It doesn't work!
This is why it is so important to be followed by a melanoma specialist. On their website Is My Cancer Different? discusses how patients with the same cancer are still totally different: (View their 2.23 minute video here!) I think many of you have already seen that in our melanoma community. Some of us have been a part of the same clinical trial and had very different reactions! We can't give up though just because one treatment works for one person and not for us. We move on to the next thing that may help!
I encourage you to take a few minutes and view their website, Facebook, and Twitter.
...And don't forget to ask yourself the question: "Is My Cancer Different?"
You know it is! Treat it like it is!
XO
