Second Fight Against Melanoma: Funding for Continued Care

Hi, my name is Kelse. In 2022, I was diagnosed with stage 2 melanoma cancer at 29 years old. I was very scared, but I knew I could beat it. I had to have surgery to remove the spot and a potential lymph node, and then I had to do a year of immunotherapy treatments. Lo and behold, that lymph node had melanoma too, so I went from stage 2 to stage 3. After a year of treatments, I was good! I had to do scans and blood work every 3 months to keep checking if it came back, and for the last year and a half, we didn’t see a thing.

In January, I did a blood test, and it went positive by a very small amount. We ordered a CT scan and more blood work. The blood work went back to zero, but my CT showed something in my boob. They sent me to get a mammogram and ultrasound to see if we needed to biopsy it. We did. So, I went in and got a biopsy done. I also had to do my blood work again, and this time it went back positive again. I finally got my biopsy results back, and they told me I had stage 1 moderately differentiated invasive ductal carcinoma. It was a shock, to say the least.

I was really struggling with the thought of having two cancers and the thought of deciding between a lumpectomy and mastectomy. After about a week, I got a call from my doctors stating the lab is re-testing my strands to check for melanoma because they might have made a mistake. After results came back, it is my melanoma, not breast cancer.

It has moved to my breast though, which is very rare. I will be doing a lot of testing and will be going through another year of treatment. I will be having surgery that will put me out of work for 4 weeks or so. I don’t have any disability insurance, so I won’t be bringing in any money and will be racking up more and more medical bills.

I would love to take the stress of money off my plate and focus solely on getting better and fighting this for a second time.

The doctors cannot tell if I am stage 3 or stage 4 yet, and the prognosis results between them are pretty drastic, so I am also taking precautions and acting like I have stage 4 by creating a will and such.

If you can help, I’d appreciate it, and if not, just keep me in your thoughts! Thank you so much!