GOOD NEWS FOR MELANOMA SUFFERERS AND FAMILIES! Breathtaking Stories Of Courage And Survival ... 7 Melanoma Survivors Live To Tell Their Tales And Each One Reveals ..."How I survived melanoma skin cancer and how YOU can too!"“People are often sceptical when I tell my story. Four years ago I was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma (the final and almost-always fatal kind). I chose to treat it solely with alternative therapies and powerful positive thinking. Now, four years later, I’m cancer-free." 1. How do I know if I have melanoma? What are the signs and symptoms? I wanted to know why the doctor was so concerned when she looked at that little mole on my forearm. What was it that looked so sinister? How worried should I be? Was the doctor over-reacting? 2. What tests will the doctor carry out to see if I have melanoma? Will they be able to tell me on the spot if there is a problem? Or will I have to wait for days, fretting about what’s going on?
3. How curable is melanoma? If they do tell me it’s melanoma, what exactly does that mean? Is it a “death sentence”? Will they tell me “You have 12 months to live. Get your life in order and prepare for the worst.”?
4. What are the stages of the disease? The reading I’d done said that there were different stages of melanoma. What are the symptoms of each stage? What are the survival rates of each stage? If I had a later stage melanoma, wouldn’t I know about it? Wouldn’t I actually feel like I was sick?
5. How quickly does the disease progress or spread? Should I have gone to the doctor sooner? I’d noticed the mole changing over about 3 months. Was this delay critical?
6. How is melanoma normally treated? Would I have to go through chemotherapy and radiation treatment? If so, for how long? What are the odds of curing the disease using these treatments? How extensive is any surgery likely to be? How big will the scars be?
7. What are the common side effects of the treatments? Would I lose my hair? Would I become sterile? What else could I expect?
8. What alternative treatments are available? I’d heard of people going on special macro-biotic diets. I’d seen lots of herbal remedies on the internet. Which of these are proven and documented, and which ones are “snake oil”? Is it possible to combine alternative treatments with surgical other western treatments? How do I find a doctor that is open to using both alternative and western treatments?
9. What are the latest treatments being developed, and who is carrying out clinical trials of these new treatments? If there was some new treatment out there, how could I find out about it, and be a part of it?
10. What do I do in the first week after being diagnosed? I didn’t feel “sick”, so staying home in bed didn’t seem appropriate. But just going back to work and trying to ignore it didn’t work for me either. What would give me the best chance? 11. How do I get in touch with others who are going through the same thing? What support groups are available for melanoma sufferers or friends and family? I felt it would help to talk to others, especially about their feelings in the early stages. I also wanted to know how to break the news to my family. I have two young children, and the thought of having to tell them “Mommy might not be around for much longer” terrified<
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