Hi Teresa,
I will briefly run through my history
I have been a career firefighter for 45 years. I retired 3 years ago and I am still involved with the fire dept as a certified fire and explosion investigator. I recognize this automatically puts me at a high rick for cancer.
In 2016 I had a mishapen mole on my left shoulder. PCP took a sample that came back + for melonoma. Sent to local "cancer" doc. Sentinal lymph node biopsy - took extended time for pathology to return -small spot, + melonoma. Believed to have been removed during LNB. The local doc wanter to remove lymph nodeds left side.
At that time I wanted a second opinion, I am familiar with the lasting effects of lymph node removal.
I am fortunate that I live an hour away from Fred Hutch and UW Medical Ctr
I meet with Dr. David Byrd and was told of large study of the simular type issue. Half had lymph nodes removed and half chose medical surveillance. He also indicated that lymph node removal was method of choice 5 years ago.
I chose Fred Hutch as my new provider and also chose medical surveillance.
For 5 and a half years I had multiple CT, ultra sounds and skin monitoring per year with decreasing frequency as time went on. Nothing ever showed up as out of the ordinary untill, on what was to be my last scan, something showed up on the CT scan in my liver. This was followed up with MRI, Biopsy. Biopsy came back as adenocarsonoma.
My oncologist believed this was not melonoma and also not the primary site of the cancer. Followed up with PET scan, endoscopy, sigmoidoscopy and additional MRI of left thigh(indicated on PET scan) I am awaiting results. From what I can read from the MRI is that nothing stands out. Strangely, it is seems counter intuotive to "want" something to show up. But I do.
I am waiting consult from last MRI. Prior the oncologist kind of charted a path toward chemo / raditaion. I will know more in a week.
As to your question, I have had no symptoms of anykind during this journey.
Not shuch a "brief" hx

Mike
Also, I am willing to share any/all of my reports.

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