Receiving the CANCER Diagnosis
Leading up to finding out my husband had stage IIIb metastatic melanoma, life seemed to be going great…Never take life for granted, enjoy every minute!
We finally became home owners in August 2017. Todd had quit his job working for the pest control company in September 2017 and we had the new business watching over houses and he was kept busy with the handyman services. After a couple of months I decided that I was going to quit my job and join him full time with the business.
FYI Kloey came up with our business name Peace Beach and we loved it, something about it just clicked plus we think it is special that she came up with the name by herself 🙂 and now it seems to fit with a wellness business we are trying to convert over to. It is funny how things happen.
December came and Todd felt a large lump under his left armpit, but had been doing some pull-ups the night before and did not think much of it. The next week we were both sel employed, it felt great and what a stress relief! We even took the best family vacation we have ever had to New York the week before Christmas, it was amazing and it even snowed our first night in the city.
After Christmas, the lump was still there and Todd cancelled a dentist appointment in exchange for a visit at a walk in clinic. The doctor at the walk in clinic seems concerned and sent Todd for a CT scan. Then we met with a general surgeon. We figured either way it was abnormal and it should come out. The surgeon thought the worse case it could be Lymphoma. On December 27th, 2017 Todd had out patient surgery to remove the lymph node.
January 2nd, 2018, we received the call. The doctor said it was not the answer we were hoping for…it was Melanoma! Words cannot describe the feeling that came over us
I had worked in the medical field for 13 years and the first office I worked at was an oncology/hematology practice. Traditionally, I knew that cancer treatment had come along way. I thought whatever we have to do, we will be ok. It would be hard but Todd is strong and he can beat this!
The dermatologist had heard cases of Melanoma only being found in the lymph node, we held on to that little bit of hope more than anything! After all the scans showed negative results everywhere, we felt some relief. However, both his Dermatologist and Oncologist here in town agreed on an Immunotherapy treatment plan of the drug Opdivo. The drug had just been FDA approved to be given as adjuvant therapy. Todd had second opinions from a surgical Oncologist and a Melanoma specialist at Orlando Health. They both recommended the Opdivo treatment as well as the Surgical oncologists opinion to have a lymph node dissection done and the dissection is not something Todd wanted to do.
What we thought were his only options where on the table. When we came across this amazing interview that involved The Gerson Therapy and healing melanoma naturally. This sounded like something we should consider, and even seen an Alternative Medicine Dr. At Todd’s next Oncologist visit he merely mentioned the therapy, and before he could get the words out of his mouth the Dr.
Because of fear the decision was made to move forward with the Immunotherapy treatments.
**Click the link below to watch the interview with Chris Wark and Bailey O’Brien that ended up changing our lives! Wish we would have listened to our intuition a little more at this time.
