Anthony Schmidt

A glimpse of what is going on with Anthony. In the summer of 2016, Anthony had a mole on his back right below his left shoulder blade that became irritated and began to bleed. We took him to a dermatologist who removed the mole and within a week the doctor called and said it tested positive for stage 5 melanoma. He was then referred to a cancer doctor in Detroit Michigan and they performed a more invasive surgery. Within a week they called and said it appeared that the cancer had spread to the surrounding tissue. He was then scheduled for another surgery to remove the lymph nodes under his left arm and also more tissue from his back. He was then scheduled that he would start a treatment that is a immune system booster. It was in IV form. He only took 2 treatments when they discovered in a seminar that they had been giving him way too much. There was the decision made then to try a different treatment that was in pill form. Before his medicine came he left for California for a 3 week working vacation (that was in February of this year.) His time here in California kept being extended and he decided he liked the work here so he rented an apartment. Last week he suddenly started telling us he had a very bad headache, like migraine. He couldn't get relief from it with medication and was unable to get any sleep due to the extreme pain in his head. Holly and I, (Matt), had been in Idaho for a wedding and on the way home we got some information that things were not going well. We struck for home and picked Anthony up and brought him out to our place for the night. I asked him if he wanted to go get checked out but at that point he wanted to get some rest and hoped that the migraine would go away. 


After a restless night and no improvement, I told Anthony that he didn't have a choice and that we were going to go to the hospital to get checked out.


We greatly appreciate all the prayers and support and the love that we as a family feel! We will do the best we can to keep everyone updated as things progress.