My daughter, Courtney, was diagnosed with malignant melanoma skin cancer stage 2 C on May 12, 2011, at 16 years old. Her tumor was 7 mm deep, ulcerated, invasive, and a high mitotic rate of 9. Courtney had 4 weeks of high dose Interferon, and 48 weeks of peginterferon alfa-2b. Courtney did very well on the interferon and completed her 1 year treatment. She will now return to St. Jude every 3 months for 2 years, then every 6 months until she is 26. She is doing great!
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Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Interferon & Peginterferon Treatment
Courtney started her interferon treatment 3 weeks ago, and did have a few problems. First, she was sick after every treatment and on the 2nd week she began having problems with her liver so they had to stop treatment for a week. Yesterday they told us that her liver was back to normal and they resumed treatment today using 25% less. So far she seems to be feeling good. She has to take nausea meds around the clock and advil every 6 hours. We will be leaving St. Jude next week... hopefully Wednesday. We are both so happy to get back home. I am glad that she will have a couple weeks of summer vacation left before she starts back to school on Aug 1st. She will start the 2nd phase of her treatment on Monday... peginterferon. She will receive 1 shot a week for 48 weeks. We will come back to St. Jude once a month for a year, and then every 3 months for 2 years... every 6 months for 3 years... once a year for 5 years.
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