My results are in! And earlier than I had expected.

I phoned one of the melanoma specialist nurses on Tuesday morning to ask her about a potential side effect – not urgent and I could absolutely wait for her to return my call I explained in my answer phone message. Then a couple of hours later, whilst I was in work I had a phone call back. She told me that the last of my scans (head and neck – different body parts are reported separately by different radiologists) had come back only half an hour ago, and they now had the full report. I can’t quite believe I’m typing this, but they are good. Really good!

The short of it is, the largest nodule in my lungs has more than halved in size (!) Other nodules are stable, no spread of the cancer cells and no growth anywhere in my body. How is that even possible? I was diagnosed with a rapidly progressing, aggressive form of melanoma 6 months ago. I had only 2 (out of 4) courses of combined ipi and nivo immunotherapy, which was stopped after quite serious side effects. I had a 3 month break from treatment, and have since received infliximab – an extreme immuno-suppressant, along with huge amounts of steroids – also immuno-suppressing. This has always worried me, as immunotherapy is ramping up your immune system to work harder, and then taking steroids to dampen it back down again seemed somewhat counter-productive. Then, since the end of November I have had 4 single nivo immunotherapy treatments.

Honestly, what are these wonder drugs that can change someone’s prognosis so drastically in only a couple of months!? The plan is that I stay on the nivo, probably for at least another year – I’ll get the full low down from my consultant in a weeks’ time (the appointment where I was supposed to be getting my results).

I fully appreciate that there is still a long way to go, but you’ve got to take the little wins. And boy, do they feel good! I suddenly felt a bit silly on Tuesday evening for celebrating like I had finished the race (or in my case been cured) when really it’s all still to play for. And then I gave myself a good talking to. If there’s one thing I have learned during these past 7 months, it’s that there really is no point in spending today preparing yourself for the worst thing that could potentially happen further down the line. Not only do you make yourself feel rubbish in the present, but you waste a perfectly good day being negative and worrying about something that may not ever happen. You wouldn’t spend the whole day worrying about maybe getting knocked down by the number 42 bus in a months time, so why should I spend my time worrying about something that may or may not happen in the future.