Hello, I've been on here on and of since my diagnosis is January 24, so much is going on in my head at the moment I was diagnosed with melanoma and told I needed a wider excision and sentinel lymph node biopsy, operation been cancelled twice, once due to issue at hospital and the other time I got covid, im now set for op in June,
I also have multiple meningioma brain tumours that were found in 2022, so much going on it's all really overwhelming,
Hi Em83 and a very warm welcome to the melanoma forum which I hope you'll find is both an informative and supportive place to be.
It sounds like you've had a long and difficult journey so I can understand why everything feels overwhelming right now.
I've had a WLE and SLNB, so if there's anything you want to ask just fire away.It would be great if you could put something about your diagnosis and treatment to date 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.
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
The type of scan that is done to locate the sentinel lymph node biopsy to be removed and tested is called a lymphoscintigraphy.
A small amount of radioactive dye is injected as close to the original melanoma site as possible and then a scanner is used to see which sentinel lymph node takes up the radioactive dye. The surgeon then knows to remove that one when you have your wide local excision.
When I had mine done I was at the nuclear medicine department for about a couple of hours. After the dye was injected I then had to lie on a couch while a small machine was positioned over me. This was the scanner that saw where the dye went. I think some people who've had this have reported that sometimes the machine is hand held.
There was nothing unpleasant about it, in fact they had soothing music playing in the background. One thing they did warm me about was that my wee would be bright blue for about 24 hours!
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
