Melanoma Staging - Melanoma Staging Video

Melanoma is the most common form of cancer for young adults 25-29 years of age, and the second most common form of cancer for young people 15-29 years old.

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Melanoma Staging - Melanoma Staging Video

Hello, my name is Terry. Did you know that over 2 million people are diagnosed with skin cancer every year? One person dies from melanoma every hour, every 57 minutes, to be exact. Melanoma is the most common form of cancer for young adults 25-29 years of age, and the second most common form of cancer for young people 15-29 years old.
There are some charts that the doctor gave to me when they determined that I had a tumor behind my ear; a little bitty thing. The surgeon said, "Oh, it's just a wart. Nothing to worry about." But about week later we got the results back from the pathologist, and the thing was melanoma! So, they started throwing charts at me. The 'T' stands for the tumor, obviously, and there are categories from 1 to 3 depending on the size of the tumor. Mine was 3.6 millimeters. So, with the ulceration, it was a T3.
And then they go to the 'N' characteristic, which is the lymph node involvement. In my case, it had not gotten to the lymph nodes yet; if it gets into the lymph nodes and starts spreading to the organs in the body, there's not a lot that they can do about it.
And then there's the 'M' category; the distant metasasis, where they determine whether the cancer cells have spread to other parts of the body or not. In my case, it hadn't gotten that far. They put all of that together, the tumor, the lymph node involvement and the distant metasasis, and the determine the 'stage' of the cancer. In my case, it was a T3b tumor; I had stage 2b cancer.
They also have a chart to determine how much of a margin they need to take. If the tumor is between 2 and 4 millimeters, then they need to get 2 centimeters of 'margin' and that's why they said that they were going to need to take my ear totally off - to get that 2 centimeters. And then that automatically determines what's going to happen next. It's all pretty cut and dried; when they find the stage, in my case it was stage II and that automatically demands a Pet scan. That's why they immediately flew into high gear and said, "You're going to have to have a Pet scan tomorrow." They weren't wasting any time; they knew exactly what to do because these charts were already in place. They discussed a sentinel node biopsy, and the possibility of a wide excision was the next thing on the list to go along with that sentinel node biopsy. If the biopsy came back negative, I would have three choices: they could go with observation, clinical trials or put me on Interferon which would make me sick for about a year. Since mine was not quite 4 millimeters, not quite as large as it could have been, they opted to go with just the observation. I was very blessed, very fortunate that it didn't go any further and I caught it when I did.
Folks, this is nothing to mess around with; I"m here to tell you than 9,480 people will die of melanoma in the year 2013 in the United States! Even cases of nonmelanoma skin cancers have increased by nearly 77% between 1992 and the year 2006. If you think that there's a chance that you have ANY kind of a spot that needs to be checked out, don't put it off! Don't wait! Don't go through what I went through. It was a terrible ordeal and you can save yourself a lot of heartache. I've written a book called, "Fears, Tears and Ears". You need to read my book, and learn a lot about this stuff. Learn how to take care of yourself and how to talk to doctors and what to expect. You can save a lot of heartache and a lot of grief if you'll go get the book.
There's a link below this video; go pick it up. It's an Amazon book. You don't have to have a Kindle to read a Kindle book. You can read it on your desk top computer; you can read it on your cell phone. But, whatever you do, pick it up; help yourself; save some heartache for you or somebody you love, read Fears, Tears and Ears.
Do it TODAY.

Melanoma Staging - Melanoma Staging Video
CLICK HERE: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C02KLMI

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