My dad continued after his surgery and consultation with the doctor really well for a few months. He had healed exceptionally well from his major abdominal surgery, was slim again from having those masses removed, and claimed he never felt better. He said he would look in the mirror and couldn't believe he saw an "old man" looking back at him because he felt like he was 35. My dad had always exercised and continued to do so as soon as he was allowed after surgery.
Unfortunately, that didn't last long. He began to get tired and had occassional bouts of nausea. When we returned to the oncologist, we decided to start chemotherapy. He was to get DTIC, or dacarbazine. He was warned this may make him tired, nauseous, and was told he'd probably lose his hair. He decided to go get his hair buzzed off to prepare....which I thought was very brave of him! However, DTIC is only effective in about 15% of cases with internal melanoma. Internal melanoma is very deadly and there isn't much hope of survival, the average survival from diagnosis is only 7 months. He decided that he felt too good, however, to not give it a try. So, he did chemo and proceeded with absolutely no side effects. The bad news, is that he was not in the 15% that responded to DTIC. On his scan, the tumors spread, and were now in more organs including the lungs and omentum.
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