My dermatologist got us set up with a local surgeon. I did a bit of research ahead of time so I wasn't walking in blind and with my good foresight was able to ask the necessary questions about my surgery. My melanoma had developed from a mole on my left thigh, near my knee. He would perform two procedures and in the outcome of one of them, I would need a third one done as well. The first procedure is called a sentinel lymph node biopsy. Radiologists would inject some dye near the mole and see where my lymphatic system would carry it. The first lymph node it travels to is called the sentinel lymph node and is the first one the fluid travels to before it enters the rest of my body. After locating it, they would remove it and immediately test it for traces of melanoma. I was fortunate at the time to have this come back negative. What this meant was the likelihood of the cancer spreading to my other organs was small.
With that step out of the way, they needed to remove the cancer site in a procedure called a wide excision. They not only wanted to take out the site, but also a wide margin around the site to ensure any spread would also be removed. There are two different ways they could have done this. The first was to do a big circle all the way around, then take skin from somewhere else on my body to graft over it. Instead, the surgeon made more of a long oval shaped cut, which makes it possible for them to simple suture me back together without the graft. As a result, more skin was removed but only at one site of my body to help prevent infectious areas.
The good thing about this surgery is it was all outpatient, meaning I never had to be admitted and stay overnight. I was able to go home two hours after my anesthesia wore off, with proper instructions on how to clean it, pain medications, and what not. For the weeks after my surgery, I wasn't in so much pain from the actual incision, but more from my muscle aching so bad because I couldn't walk right. The incision went right to the edge of my knee, and caused a lot of pain if I attempted to bend it any more than slightly. I tried using a cane to keep myself from putting any pressure on it and because of this, my other leg compensated which caused extreme muscle aches. I was able to walk on my own after about 4 weeks, and able to completely straighten my leg after 6 weeks, resting periodically. My constant reminder of this is an 8 inch scar on my thigh (which, all things considered, healed very well).
We were put in touch with a local oncologist who told us of some options we had for post surgery treatment and referred us to another oncologist (who was very well skilled and also a good friend of his) in Atlanta. The results of the surgery were excellent. The lymph node had no traces of cancer, and the excision removed from my thigh had no traces of cancer in it (other than the original site). By all purposes, this would means I was clean of disease (they don't use the word cure because with cancer you can never be 100%). But because of the thickness of the original site and the fact it was ulcerated, there was a chance some cells could have been absorbed into my body.
He told us I would likely have a 25% chance of it returning, which is not good but better odds than most. The treatment option we were looking at would only reduce that chance to about 15% if the treatment worked. After thinking it over, both me and my wife decided to not pursue the treatment option, because the side effects might not be worth the additional protection. At this point, we were basically finished with the big stuff. I would still need to return to the dermatologists once a year for a full body screening of my skin, as well as semi-yearly trips to the oncologist for testing purposes.
Unfortunately with cancer you can never tell what might happen...
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