May 29th - Update

Hi everyone,

The first week of the GM-CSF shot has gone better than expected. As I understand it, GM-CSF works with my bone marrow to produce more white blood cells to fight off the cancer cells. So they said I may feel like I am coming down with the flu, as my larger bones (arms, legs & head) would ache. I only had one night, the first night, of yucky side effects, but since then, I have been fine and just go to bed earlier :-)

I then visited my dermatologist on Tuesday for a follow-up and she decided to shave off 4 more freckles/moles that looked odd to her. As it turned out, she called me yesterday and said I would need to have them deeper excised by Dr. Byrd since one is invasive melanoma (yet superficial and shallow), two are non-invasive melanoma and the last is atypical. After consulting with Dr. Byrd and Dr. Kaplan, we have decided to hold off on further surgery for a few months. Basically it is like those are 4 small battles in the larger war my body is fighting. The GM-CSF (and the ipilimumab that I will start July/Aug.) is systematic and will also fight to keep those areas in check. Plus, the areas had signs of regression, so that is good news that either the IL2 or GM-CSF is doing the job.

We had a great Memorial Day weekend, Doug went to Whistler for a hockey tournament, Alexa's soccer team won the tournament they were in, and Kourtney's soccer team is about to get started with their summer season of tournaments too.

Thanks for all your support and please wear sunscreen :-)

~Keri