There was so much hope that this would be James's saving grace & every treatment afterward would only have to be done out of caution instead of necessity. The whole cancer thing would be simply an insane memory in our lives.

As you know, things didn't work out that way. We didn't know then that the surgery only bought James more time.

When we saw James after the surgery, he remarked how he was so glad when he opened his eyes & was still alive.

The surgery was not simple; his tumor had doubled in size shortly before surgery. James also lost quite a bit of blood, so what was initially an outpatient procedure was a hospital stay.

We had no idea the worst was yet to come.

Throughout this entire ordeal, there was never a time when I ever gave up hope. It was hurdle after hurdle, but nothing that made me absolutely freak out. It was just something else we had to do to get James better.

Melanoma Monday is the first Monday in May.  It's used to raise awareness of the disease.

A friend sent me this photo of my husband, James.  The pictures of James growing up are few & far between.  I have just one tote of pictures from when James & his siblings were growing up.  They're all young childhood pictures.  Before this, I think I've seen only one other picture of my husband as a teenager.

It's so neat to see James like this.  I didn't officially meet him until he was 22.  I'm so thankful that I got 15 years to know him.  I wish I had known him earlier & I wish he was still here.  He evolved so much as a person & I was looking forward to many more years with him.

Last year, I didn't know I would be a widow.  I didn't realize how deadly Melanoma can be.  Melanoma can spread more quickly & earlier than many other forms of cancer.

In James's case, his Melanoma developed from a mass in his left underarm region.  It was a race against time until the treatments could no longer keep up with cancer.  After 7 months of battle, James peacefully passed away.

See previous updates:
- Cancer
- Update #1
- Update #2

In my last update, James had just started the BRAF inhibitors to try to slow down his cancer.

Since then, James had scans to see what was going on with the tumor & if his cancer had spread.  Thankfully, his cancer is still contained in the same area.  

We were transferred to a new doctor who went over the scans with us.  It looked like on the scans that the cancer wasn't growing as rapidly as before, which meant the BRAF inhibitors were somewhat working.  James was going to continue on the BRAF inhibitors for the near future.

See previous updates:
- Cancer
- Update #1

 This is not the update I expected to give.

After James had surgery in August, things were looking up.  His huge cancer mass was gone & we were looking to the future.

Because James has a BRAF mutation, the risk of his cancer coming back is very high.  To combat this, he was going to start immunotherapy.  There is a clinical trial involving immunotherapy that the doctors thought James would be a good candidate for.  In preparation for the clinical trial, James had to do all new scans.  If he wasn't going for the clinical trial, the scans would have been 3 months after surgery.

It has been only about a month since my last update but things have moved fairly quickly with James' cancer treatment.

This past month has been filled with lots of traveling to get the fastest treatment possible.

After receiving the initial melanoma diagnosis, James had an appointment with an oncologist to discuss options for treatment.

It was determined that the tumor in his arm area would be removed.  Before that could happen, James needed to complete further testing to see if the cancer had spread anywhere else.

With lots of help from his care team, James was able to make all the necessary appointments in a short amount of time & get scheduled for surgery.

This is a post I never thought I would have to write. I'm usually a very private person. It's ironic that I have a blog because I'm so private. I can write about things around our home, but it isn't easy to post about our lives. I like to keep our daily life to myself, but we've been going through something that will change our lives...

My husband, James, has cancer.

It began as a large lump in his arm/chest that wouldn't disappear. After a biopsy, the tumor was confirmed to be melanoma-related.

I never thought cancer would be a part of our story.

We really only have a few details at this point.  

We initially thought the tumor could be something else, so the melanoma came out of nowhere. I'm so thankful a doctor quickly decided to perform a biopsy when my husband went for another test. It quickly ruled out the other directions we were going in.

My husband has an appointment with an oncologist this week, so we'll hopefully have more information then and treatment options.

I wanted to write about this because we're not the only ones going through a challenging diagnosis. It also helps me to see different perspectives, so I wanted to provide my own. This will change every area of our lives soon, so it felt inauthentic to not include it here. I could only go on for so long, acting like everything was great before it all came down.

I stay busy & upbeat, but it's so difficult. Keeping up with my blog has been a good distraction, so I plan on continuing that.

Right now, there are so many unknowns with my husband's treatment. We're hoping for the best but have had a lot of tough conversations over the past few weeks.