Monday, May 26, 2014

Week 5 of my cancer fight

Last week was a big week. first Yervoy (immunotherapy) Wednesday and Gamma Knife radiation treatment to the old brain tumor site on Friday. My head is a little more FrakenFine this week with the holes in my forehead from mounting the frame. My next treatment is June 11th.


My "team" (Don, Carlos and Erin) joined me at MDA for the Yervoy and we all hope it works. There is a 10-20% chance of of success and I hope I am one of those lucky ones. It is a big gamble. Such is life. Thank you for all the great supportive messages!

So far the only side effect is headaches and I am having trouble seeing everything clearly including reading words and numbers. Nothing new, haha! Excuse my typing here. The side effects SHOULD clear up but I am not driving right now and my equilibrium is off slightly. If you see me squinting to see your face and focus you will understand its just a slight issue.

Processing this week, we had a lot of time to discuss life. My new motto is "each day I wake up is a gift. I am not dying today - so make the most of it!" Hell yeah. I was discussing with a good friend today that this could be a great gift. I get the opportunity to make a positive impact with the time I have and share as much as I can while enjoying everything I want. This may be viewed as reckless, but I think it is much more of an opportunity to be good.

I am equally worried about Erin and I hope my friends are able to come together for her when needed. She is a beautiful, strong, smart, supportive, caring women who gave up so much to move to Arizona when we met. It was right then. It has always been right. Our goal has always been to play as much as possible between our responsibilities and grow old together. This hasn't changed.


I need to fill you in with some reality. This isn't just skin cancer I have. I look OK from the outside but know that I am stage 4 metastatic melanoma with brain tumors. The harsh reality is 16% of people in my stage don't survive to 5 years. I want you to know this not because I am not giving up. I am far from that. I also don't believe I am a statistics. I am saying this because my time is VERY valuable (and so is your time!!) so I am going to make every second count if it is 12 months or 12 years.  When I hug you know I mean it. When I say thank you, know it is real. Please help me continue this fight. Stay positive and have hope that this or something else will work or someone will find a cure to help all the people who also have or will get melanoma. This is a terrible terminal disease and I am an example that you can do everything right and something genetically can go wrong. My father, sister and I...all have/had melanoma. I will not let caner define me, I am much more than that.

Live, laugh and Love as much as possible!

Thank you for reading. Much love always,
 Jason & Erin

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