Decisions, Decisions

So, I posted Friday that I'd found out that the insurance company wouldn't cover my participation in a clinical trial, and I was at peace with that because I felt a difficult decision had been made for me. Well, Friday afternoon at my Radiation Oncology appointment, Dr. V, my "RadOnc" told me that the insurance company would automatically deny anything they can, and that Dr. J, my regular Oncologist, could probably open those doors back up for me. Which means the decision could possibly be back in my hands. Sigh. I'm terrible at making decisions, and I have documentation to prove that :).  So I am praying, and ask you to pray with me, that God either keeps this door shut, or continues to give me a peace about NOT pursuing drug treatment. I know drug therapy can be necessary, but my choices there are so limited. A well known drug that has a 3-5% success rate, or a lesser known, newer drug that probably will work better, but who knows what kind of long term side effects it'll have? And it definitely has some undesirable short term side effects. And nothing is a guarantee that the cancer won't come back somewhere else.

This is a huge problem with melanoma, the research is so limited, and most people, including me a short time ago, think it's no big deal, it's just your skin and you just cut that part off and move on. Not true! Your skin is your biggest organ, and melanoma is a sneaky little devil that travels through your body and hangs out just waiting to attach itself to an organ and start growing (that's not a complete medical description, that's Melissa's version). So anyway, there's not been as much research on melanoma as other cancers, and there's no tried and true treatments. (That is not to imply that other cancers are easily treated, or have guaranteed treatment, they obviously don't, but a lot of them have more research behind them)

I go Friday to schedule my radiation treatments (was supposed to be last Friday, but they scheduled the appointment for the wrong thing and I basically wasted a trip, good thing I'm so impressed with Mayo otherwise or I would have been really upset!) and then next Monday to talk with Dr J about this clinical trial deal, and regardless of what I decide, we'll be doing follow up scans soon.....fingers crossed for good results, I have a feeling my life will be in 3 month intervals for a while!

Thanks for the love and prayers, hugs and encouragement :)