My Life's Journey with Melanoma

I had a great opportunity to umpire the BYU Alumni baseball game Friday at BYU.  I have not worked a game in a while and have not used three man mechanics in a while either.  It was a very great night and the view is awesome!  They decided to play 14 innings straight so we used two crews.  The first crew worked the first 7 innings and my crew worked the second 7 innings.  I worked behind the plate which I find awesome to begin with and a lot of fun. I have worried, since my surgery, that umpiring behind the plate would be difficult.  My face is still numb on the right side and my right ear is really tender.  I worry that taking my mask on and off would irritate that side of my face.  I also worry that if I get hit with a ball on the mask that it would cause unbearable pain.  I learned that neither was true!  I am glad that I took the time to let my face heal as much as possible but I am also glad to get out and umpire and run around a ...

I received an interesting email from a friend this week.  It said he had heard I had relapsed and he wanted to get together and go to lunch.  I was really appreciative of the invitation but started to wonder why he thought I had relapsed.  I spoke with this friend who told me that he heard through someone else that I was "terminal" and that I only had a few months to live.  He also told me that this message had been received by many in an announcement made at a meeting.  I was a little shocked!  First that someone heard I was dying and second that I mattered enough to have it announced!  I assured my friend that I was doing just fine and that I was not "dying".  I told him that I had no new re-occurrence of melanoma and that my treatments were going just fine.  This made me start to think about life in general and how we communicate! In regards to communication, I learned how this information was obtained.  It was taken out of con...

Well, I had better catch everyone up.  With my last scans and doctor visit, in July 2010, I was told by the doctor that everything was clear and that we would be back in 3 months.  10 days later, I received a phone call from Dr. Grossman's office that there was some concern with my neck CT scan.  The doctor said there were some lymph nodes in my neck that had enlarged (this is not a good sign).  The doctor said they wanted me to get another PET/CT scan to see if the lymph nodes were reactive.  I went to my appointment at Huntsman.  The test consists of getting an IV line, injecting the radioactive tracer, waiting for about 45 minutes, and then getting scanned.  After getting the tracer, I waited.  After about an hour and a half, the nurse came in and said that there was a problem with the "camera" that she would be back in a few minutes.  30 minutes later, the nurse came back and walked me down a hall and into the basement.  I knew somet...