Living with Melanoma - An Ongoing Journey

  • The Mind is a Powerful Thing

    Having cancer imposes a tough challenge on us and raises at least one big question. Can we take control of the situation and get on with our lives? That depends on many things, not the least of which is the severity of the illness of course. I can only speak from my experience, which is currently responding well to immunotherapy treatment for malignant melanoma after eight rounds of single drug treatment with Nivolumab…

  • Keep Going Keep Strong

    I'm a few months into my single drug immunotherapy treatment with Nivolumab and my most recent CT scan back in April showed further reduction in size of the growths I have. I'm told they've all reduced by a third from the previous CT scan, and that scan had shown some had reduced by a half, whilst the others had stabilised, compared to the one before that. So it seems like good progress.  

    It's a very positive…

  • Belief and Recovery from Lymph Node Block Dissection

    Right here right now I’m feeling quite mellow, let’s say cautiously positive, things could be heading in the right direction, maybe for the first time since my journey with melanoma began. I hesitate to be overly positive as we all know how cancer has a habit of not conforming

    I’m receiving immunotherapy treatment on a 28 day cycle of Nivolumab infusions and have the second one coming up this week. I previously…

  • Think Well, Act Well, Stay Strong

    This is a difficult subject. I’ve talked about it in other blog posts, but I believe it is so important it warrants more focus. In facing up to melanoma or other cancer being positive is essential, it may be hard sometimes, but it’s possible, and can provide benefits to physical as well as mental health. State of mind can be very powerful in challenging disease and illness.

    There’s a huge range of emotions…

  • Fit to fight the battle

    Physical health and mental attitude can be your strongest weapons in the fightback against cancer. This is a story of how diet and personal fitness can help you make a good recovery from surgery and respond better to immunotherapy. It's from my own personal experience, which I'd like to share to encourage others, and it would be great to hear of others experiences too.

    From November 2017 to March 2018 I had three…