Re-posting of survivor's message

carolenk

I do not have skin cancer and just jumped onto this board to share the following--I don't know if this survivor is already on this board or not but I loved her story:

7. April 27, 2010
1:45 pm

I, too, have miraculously survived my original expiration date. Mine is stage four melanoma. (Stage five is the other side of the grass.) I suffered hideous, hallucinogenic, life-threatening treatments called Interleukin-2, along with garden variety radiation and surgeries.

I wrote about these travails in an as-yet-unpublished book called, Melanoma Mama, The Story of a Miraculous Second Chance, in which I describe the cross-country, solo, tent-camping trip I took to celebrate my recovery.

IL-2 patients are few and far between – in part because the treatment is rare, but also because most (80%) soon die from cancer in spite of treatment. We IL-2 patients risk side-effects that are almost guaranteed to land us in the intensive care unit, because there’s nothing to lose when the grim reaper has you in his maw. Il-2 offers the best hope so far for long-term recovery from melanoma, but only to a few.

If there are any IL-2 patients who wish to communicate with the Melanoma Mama, I am at ccrooker@comcast.net.

— Constance Emerson Crooker, the Melanoma Mama