Hi all,
After all this time, I think it has finally hit that this is happening, I’m 26 and have cancer and I feel like everything is starting to crumble. How do you cope? No matter how much people around me try and support me, I still feel painfully alone and just so sad all the time.
Back in August ‘22 a large lump randomly appeared in my neck. I reached out to my GP right away and was told it was “probably just a cyst” and that they would do a blood test and get back to me with the results. Even after chasing they never did.
I started getting really bad headaches that would progress to migraines that made me physically sick more often than not. Thankfully my work has private healthcare and in the end it got so bad and hard to deal with that I used the service.
From there things went pretty quickly, I originally had appointments with an ENT who did the camera up the nose, had an ultrasound and FNA arranged and repeatedly the results came back inconclusive, all they knew from the samples was that it most certainly was NOT a cyst and was my lymph node. I had a neck dissection and the surgeon managed to remove a 4cm lump. Even with the whole thing available for testing, at my follow up appointment (which of on the anniversary of my nan’s death) I was told that they were still pending some results but that they had a differential of two different cancers. Then on November 14th it was confirmed as metastatic melanoma (stage 3), I was passed over to an oncologist and since then I’ve had all sorts of scans and cameras etc. the whole works. No one knows the primary source/location of the cancer and I don’t understand.
I had another surgery back in January to remove all of the lymph nodes on the right side of my neck and so far have had two sessions of immunotherapy and monthly injections of Zoldadex. My oncologist calls every three weeks to check in. My next session is in a couple of weeks and god I’m exhausted.
If you got this far, does anyone have any advice on how to cope?
Hi CertainlyUnexpected and a very warm welcome to the online community which I hope you'll find is both an informative and supportive place to be.
I'm sorry to read that after lengthy investigations you've finally been diagnosed with melanoma.
As the online community is divided up into different support groups, I'm going to recommend that you join us over in the melanoma group, where you'll find lots of people who are stage 3 and having the type of treatment that you are.
To join just click on the link I've created and, once you've joined, you can start a new post in the same way as you did here, and join in with existing conversations by clicking on reply.
It would be great if you could pop something about your diagnosis and treatment so far into your profile as it really helps others when replying to you and also when looking for someone on a similar pathway. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. To do this click on your username and then select 'Profile'. You can amend it at any time and if you're not sure what to write you can take a look at mine by clicking on my username.
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"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
