Dear Friends and Family,
Helen and I are about to pack our bags and head "down the mountain" to Chapel Hill where we will spend the night at our good friends Rick and Karen Wilson's house.  Tomorrow we will be at the Duke Cancer Center where I will start my treatment as Helen outlined in the previous post.
So all of you might know, here is how I discovered my disease.  At the end of April I had a pain under my right shoulder blade.  It was enough of a bother that I decided to go to the Urgent Care in Boone the following day.  Thinking it might be heart related they did an EKG which was normal.  They then did a chest x-ray which showed a nodule on my right lung.  They said that I would need a CAT scan and referred me to a surgeon in Boone.  Things did not work out with the Boone doctor so my brother-in-law Dr. Tony Barnes very generously offered to have it done in his office in Kentucky.  So Helen and I went off to Kentucky where we had a great visit with Tony, Lisa and the kids.  The next day the CAT scan was done and it fell on Tony to let me know that I had tumors not only on my lung but on my liver, spleen and adrenal gland as well.   Tony recommended that I get a PET scan and a CAT guided needle biopsy and arranged for that to happen in Kentucky the following week.  So Helen and I went back to Todd and came back the next week.  The PET scan showed that the tumors were likely malignant and that was confirmed when the pathology report came back on the needle biopsy.
So that is the story of how a little pain in the shoulder turned out to be Melanoma.  Ironically, the pain went away after two days and if I had just waited I would still be in the dark about the cancer inside of me.  Friends have asked about the "spot" knowing that melanoma always arises from a small skin lesion.  Well my oncologist at Duke gave me a pretty thorough going over and could not find it.  He said that the lesion could be in my mouth or eyes (I was looked over by an Ophthalmologist) or even in my GI tract.  Ever since my diagnosis Helen has been inspecting me for the telltale spot.  She thought she had it nailed down when she spied a weird looking little area on my bum and insisted on taking a picture I could send to Duke.  I realize that this is not for the weak of stomach but following is the famed "spot on my bum" which Dr. Hanks assured me is not a primary melanoma lesion.

In parting I want you all to know that I feel overwhelmed with blessings.  All of you have been so kind, concerned and generous.  You have made a happy man even happier :-)  
J

PS- I am an amateur when it comes to blogging but I believe that if you enter your email above you will get an email notice whenever there is a new post.