Hi everyone, I'm new to posting. My step dad had melanoma 15 years ago (Stage 3) and did Interferon for a year. I remember looking at this site and getting all the info I could on Melanoma back then. It really helped me get informed.
Hi everyone, I'm new to posting. My step dad had melanoma 15 years ago (Stage 3) and did Interferon for a year. I remember looking at this site and getting all the info I could on Melanoma back then. It really helped me get informed.
Back in June of this year, he was diagnosed again with stage 4 and it's in his lungs, kidney, spine and esophagus. They say too many to even count in one of his lungs. He also had a malignant plural effusion which he had surgery for to drain the fluid in his lungs on 7-30-12. They injected talc to prevent it building up again. He is still healing from that and is very, very weak and tired and in a lot of pain all the time. Now they have scheduled him for another surgery this Thursday 8-23-12 to put a stint in his kidney to try and save it. And in the meantime he got marked for this "Phase II/III Study of SBRT for localized Spine Metastasis" yesterday (his choice) to try and shrink the tumor in his spine for pain. The papers they gave out telling about it have some pretty scary sounding side effects. I've read a lot about it, but I'm still just pretty unsetteled about the whole thing. He is supposed to get shot with an hour of this SBRT radiation on Monday. I'm pretty worried and so is my mom. He really is already in bad shape. All we (and he) wanted was to focus on QUALITY of life. We just want him to feel better and for some of his pain to be relieved.
I just wondered if anyone here has been in this study, knows of anyone who has or has information on it. Is it worth the risk?
Thank you so much,
Dawn
