The doctors report....

(Celine wrote this one)
Well, it's official: three sites of melanoma on Karl's lymph nodes on his trachea right where it splits to go to his lungs. The biopsy on Monday proved that it's melanoma. Dr. Wyzinski, his onlcologist assumes that the three nodes in his deep groin behind where they took out the previous lymph nodes also have melanoma.
Good news, he is still listed as responsive to treatments and we have several proven melanoma protocols to explore. The last one he was on was successful in erradicating the melanoma. So the doctors are discussing either using that protocol (Bethesda, MD) on a stronger dose or another more powerful protocol. They just don't want to kill a butterfly with a canon. So we are waiting to hear.
What does this mean? Still 3 rounds of continuous treatment in the ICU where Karl gets to be doped up on morphine to keep the convulsions, 103 fever and aches from happening. Karl says the worse for him is the catheter(yuck!).
Why the ICU? because of the potential side effects:
kidney failure & low blood pressure. Not a good thing. Other side effects he gets when he's done that week include extreme exhaustion, chemo throat burns that make it hard to eat or taste anything. His hands and feet peel from the chemo chemical burns. We joke that women pay lots of money for chemical peels and he gets them free!
Then he gets to do a week of chemo at the infusion center along with interferon shots. This is like have the worst flu ever for a week(fever, ache, pains). Two weeks off and we start the process again.
Intially, he will do three rounds of this, scans and then potentially radiation on the sites as they can't take out the lymph nodes due to their locations.

In the whole perspective of things again he still has several treatment options available, he's a fighter, and will be Cancer FREE AGAIN!