My Experience with Melanoma
by Tyler, age 15
June 19, 2001

My name is Tyler and I am 15 years old. Last September, I had 3 moles removed. When they got the results back, they found that one was malignant, Melanoma-Stage 4.

I almost instantly went to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN. Because of my age, they sent me to a children's surgeon, Dr. Neblet. He was very nice and very smart, so I trusted him.
I went in for my biggest surgery and it was a success! After I had my stitches removed, the cut opened up. There I was with a 4 or 5 in. open cut across my back. It started to leak out potassium and it took a toll on me, both physically and emotionally. They could not close it back up because it had been exposed and infection could set in. We then had to pack it with gauze 3 times a day for a couple of weeks.
I then found out they wanted to do another surgery because of a satellite tumor below the incision. I went ahead and went through with it and this one healed up good. They then sent me to an Oncologist, Dr. Whitlock. He immediately wanted to give me a treatment, Interferon. I was a bit hesitant, but I agreed to take it.
I had a PIC line put in my arm and started taking the Interferon. On the first day, they gave it to me in about 30 minutes flat and by the time I left the infusion room, I was very sick. They decided they wanted to keep me overnight because I live about 2 hours away.
I made it through the night pretty good. On the next day, they decided they wanted to give me some pre-medication. They did, plus they gave me the interferon over a longer period of time. It seemed to help until about halfway home and I got sick. After that, I continued going back-and-forth, everyday. Some days I would do fine and others would be bad. They gave me tons of pre-meds to help and they worked, but they would put me to sleep.
The Interferon would make my different counts go up, so I would have to skip a week and come back and so on. It took me 9 weeks to get 4 weeks worth of medicine in. After I was done with the mega-doses, they put me on home injections, 3 times a week.
I still have to take pre-meds, but they're not as bad as before. I will have to take these injections until April 2002. Right now, they don't make me sick and I can give them to myself.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me!
Thanks