Welcome to Sue's CaringBridge website! Please visit often to read the latest journal entries, visit the photo gallery, and write us a note in our guestbook.
On July 5th, 2011, Sue was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic melanoma, and she has had many challenges along the way.
On November 21, 2011, Sue passed away, enduring to the end. Thank you family, friends, and community for making all the difference.
We have nine children and thirteen grandchildren, and it's wonderful that I have been able to visit with most of them over the last few months. I have had good days and bad days, as might be expected. On the bad days, hugs are the best medicine! I love my grandchildren's hugs! It is tough knowing that my time may be short, but my fight with this disease continues. I'm fighting this disease and fighting it hard!
There is a history of cancer in my family, having lost my parents and my oldest sister to cancer. We had hoped that the disease would spare the rest of us, but it has struck our family again.
In mid-July, the rapid rate of cancer growth disqulified me from being in a clinical trial that paired Ipilimumab with another immune system booster. There was great hope for good results from my participation in that trial, but it was not to be. In the mean time, I endured a week of intense, very aggressive chemotherapy to try to manage the cancer until I could have another treatment opportunity.
Not too long after being rejected from the first clinical trial, I received the test results for a specific melanoma gene mutation. POSITIVE! With the positive results, we held onto hope that I would qualify for another clinical trial for a BRAF inhibitor called Vemurafenib (now called Zelboraf).
On August 18th, I started the Zelboraf therapy and what great things it did in my cancer battle. It's hard to keep everyone informed with so many things happening, but we'll post more often now as the battle continues.
CaringBridge is a nonprofit social network dedicated to helping family and friends communicate with and support loved ones during a health journey. Learn more about CaringBridge.
