Life Alongside Radiotherapy, Living With Melanoma – 2021

Life alongside radiotherapy, living with melanoma. 

When I got my PET and CT scan results back from Nov/Dec last year, they found good and bad. My consultant called me to discuss the results, he said the brain tumour was stable but there is an active lymph-node by my spinal cord. 

The CT scan had found that the lymph-node had grown. I asked him “is it melanoma, had the cancer come back?” he replied “yes.” I told him I knew it had come back because of all the feelings that I was having; being tired, run down and mood swings. 

He discussed with me about radiotherapy, what they are going to do, all the side-effects and that I will get a phone call from the Radiotherapy Department to book me in for treatment. 

On the 25th January, I went back to the hospital to the Radiotherapy Department where the nurse discussed with me what will happen. She went through all the paperwork with me and said that they will do a map of my body so that the machine can pinpoint exactly where the tumour is located. I had a cannula in my arm for the CT scan die and they tatooed three points; one on my left side, the middle and right of my chest. 

I will be starting my five treatment sessions on Monday 16th February 2021 at Churchill Hospital, Oxford.