Randy passed away quietly in the company of family and friends in the early hours of Sunday, December 24, 2006. He lost a valiant two-year battle against skin cancer. He was deeply loved, and will be sorely missed.
If you knew Randy, you can find out more at his personal web page.
RANDY WANTED PEOPLE TO KNOW:
If you have irregular lumps or markings on your skin, no matter how benign-seeming, you should have them examined by a dermatologist. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE.
You should NOT, under any circumstances tattoo over, or pierce through skin irregularities without having them screened by a dermatologist; trace hormones and other endocrine juices associated with the skin healing process can make melanoma go ape shit; all of Randy's secondary dermal lesions occurred on surgical suture lines in otherwise clear skin.
ALSO:
Randy died of skin cancer - melanoma. Yes, you CAN die of skin cancer - when it spreads to your lungs, brain, liver, or spine.
The cancer that killed him started as a small, brown, flat mole about the size of a pencil eraser. He ignored it, because his fear of injections led him to avoid going to the doctor. He ignored it for four years. Four years too long.
Melanoma detected at "Stage 0" - while still confined to the upper layers of the skin - has a CURE rate > 93%. As it progresses through later stages, the survival statistics drop precipitously. Stage IV melanoma has a five-year survival rate somewhere around 3%.
Randy was diagnosed at Stage IIb. Within six months, he was at Stage III. Within nine months, he was Stage IV.
Randy battled melanoma for two years, during which time he tried several chemotherapies, immune therapy, experimental combination therapies, and radiation. He was treated for some eleven of more than twenty diagnosed brain tumors, had extensive metastasis throughout his lungs, and had spots on his kidney, liver, and spleen, as well as IN his bones, when he died. Three of these treatments involved mounting a titanium frame TO HIS SKULL with pointed screws - for non-spiritual purposes. This lengthy ordeal cost Blue Cross and Blue Shield several hundred thousand dollars; but for insurance, it would have bankrupted us in well under a year. For many procedures, managed care insurance may pay only 80%.
Think you're too young to "need" insurance? Think again. You NEED insurance.
When he died, one of the "recurrence" tumors on his chest looked rather like a spoiled potato, and probably weighed at least 4-6 oz.
"Eeewww - you should have that looked at..."
A Dawg and his dog Me and my buddy patch
Mod-Tracker
Backpiece
Dragon : Samurai Backpiece
Finished Left Sleeve (Pic 1)
Bicep/Shoulder Left Sleeve: Tattooed Sleeve
Right Sleeve
Right Sleeve: Right Sleeve Finished
A quick update...
2005/12/03 11:22 Greetings All,
It's been a while since I've updated my diary here. I'd love to say that it's because I've been to busy riding the bike, getting inked, and having fun; however, that's not been the case. Unfortunately the chemo therapy that I was on for 3 months didn't work. During the time that I was on the meds my cancer spread and now, in addition to being in the skin of my right shoulder, the melanoma has spread to both of my lungs.
My oncologist stopped the chemo a month ago and referred me to Dr. White at the Blumenthal Cancer Center in Charlotte, NC. His recommendation was that I undergo high-dose Interleukin-2 therapy. Before beginning a new treatment I've had to wait 4 weeks to let the other meds clear my body. Also, I had surgery to have a 5cm x 5cm tumor removed from the top of my right shoulder. This is the third surgery on my right shoulder since January. Each time they've removed a good chunk of skin from my shoulder and each time they've had to take a little bit of ink. Thankfully they've done a good job of sewing me back together so that my ink hasn't been terribly distorted.
The doctors have told me that if I don't find something to slow this cancer down that I won't make it another year. Being told that is pretty surreal because, at this time, I'm not really feeling any major symptoms of the cancer.
Starting 12/5 I'll be starting the IL-2 therapy. This will entail my being in ICU for a week, then home for two weeks and then back in ICU for a week. Once this is done they'll conduct scans to see if the cancer has stabilized, regressed, or progressed. If it has stabilized or regressed they'll repeat the process. If the cancer has progressed then they've told me that they'll likely refer me to the National Cancer Institute for experimental treatments.
Throughout all of this past year I've maintained a positive attitude and I continue to hope for the best. Having cancer has reminded me of all of the blessing that I have in my life, all the great people and love that I have in my life, and in a perverted way it has given me a "joy" of life that has allowed me to really stop sweating the small stuff. I'm lucky to be surrounded by love and support and I truly hope that I'll beat this.
I've missed my friends here over the past year and I'm sorry that I have not maintained better contact. The truth of the matter is that I've just not been online a lot over the past 11 months. If any of you would like to follow my progress (via my blog), or email me directly, you can do so by visiting my personal web page.
Here's to a good holiday season with good news and a hopeful start to a new year!
Randy
I'm BAAAACCCKKK....
2005/08/11 20:36 Greetings All,
It's been quite a few months since my account expired and I found myself really missing the gang here. So I've renewed my account and I'll be trying to catch up on my messages soon.
It's strange that my last diary entry was about my melanoma surgery back in January. Somehow that all seems like a long time ago. A lot has happened since then. I dealt with medical issues through March and then left melanoma behind me. Rick and I went to China for two weeks in May and had a wonderful experience and I was looking forward to returning from the trip and getting my ass in gear working on my thesis and my job search -- two things that I've put off to a terrible degree.
Well, I had a follow up appointment with the doctor the first week of June. It was routine -- when you've had a melanoma it's normal to have a follow up with your doctor every 3 - 4 months. We went through the examination routinely and then he asked about a "pimple" on my right shoulder, around an inch and a half from my excision scar. I told him that I'd noticed it while we were in China and figured it was an ingrown hair. He decided "just to be safe" that they'd biopsy it. I didn't too much about it.
A few days later, on Friday, the doctor called to tell me that the biopsy revealed that the "pimple" was a recurrence of the melanoma. :-( Well, they had not talked to me about having a 'recurrence' back in January, so it took a while for the seriousness of the situation. Since this is a 'recurrence' it means that they didn't get all of the cancer back in January. The recurrence upped the stage of my cancer from IIb to IIIb, which changes everything.
Since then I've had another surgery to remove the "pimple/tumor" and they also did a lymph node biopsy. The lymph nodes checked clear, but my doctor sent me to a clinical oncologist to discuss drug therapies, he also scheduled a PET scan to augment the information that they gathered through the CT scan and MRI that was performed prior to my surgery. A few days later he called to tell me that the scan turned up another tumor in my shoulder.
Anyway, to cut to the chase, 6 days ago I started chemotherapy. The regimen that they have me on is called "T&T," which consist of the drugs thalidomide and temodar. I'm thankful that the drugs are administered orally as I HATE needles! These drugs are supposed to be "gentle" as far as chemo is concerned. So far that is holding out to be true. However, they do cause a decrease in both red and white blood cell counts, so I know that the 'real' effects of the drugs are yet to show up. I'll be on these drugs for 6-months.
That's the news my friends. It's all pretty damed sucky! Melanoma is a shitty cancer. It can kill you quick or it can wait years (10 years or more) before rearing its ugly head. There currently is no proven therapy with this cancer. It continues to baffle the doctors researching it. I'm just hoping for the best.
So, what do you when you have a disease that could kill you within a month or leave you alone for the next 10 years (or maybe just pick on you every now and again over the next decade)? Well, I've come to the conclusion that you just "live." Given the unpredictability of melanoma, I can't live everyday wringing my hands and worrying whether I'm going to get sick or not. If I did that, I could find myself having wasted a big part of my life worrying.
One thing I DO KNOW -- MELANOMA SUCKS!! I can't change the past, so I'm not dogging myself for taking so long to have the original lesion looked at, but I do feel compelled to share my experience with people. The fact is, if found in its early stages, melanoma is almost 100% curable. Once it gets to the stage I'm at, the best we can to is take stabs at it and hope that something will slow it down long enough for me to have a longer life.
Since all this has happened to me I've had several friends decide to visit their dermatologist. With the current stats indicating that 1 in 74 Americans will develop a melanoma in their lifetime, it's a very wise thing to see a dermatologist at least once a year. Had I known about melanoma, I certainly wouldn't have just left it sitting there growing on my shoulder! If any of you have a suspicious mole or spot on your skin, PLEASE have it checked!
I've missed you guys and I'm happy to be back!
Catching Up...
2005/01/28 13:45 It's been a very long time since I've left an update here, so I figured it was about time that I did! I don't even know where to start!
Perhaps the best thing is to just say that the move went well, I'm settled in to life in North Carolina, the holidays were good. It's all been pretty routine and normal life. That is to say, until after the first of the year.
I've had a spot on my right shoulders for a couple of years. I don't know when it appeared or if its always been there. At any rate, back a few years ago, when I first started getting inked, I had a few people tell me "Dude, you should have that looked at." Well, I meant to have it looked at, but never really got around to it. From my point of view it just looked like a big, flat, mole, something that the doctor would probably want to remove, but no big deal. Fast-forward to my dermatology appointment a little over 3 weeks ago.
The dermatologist walked in and took a look at the spot. "Yeah, that should come off, and we'll want to biopsy it. The surgeon will probably want to do it next week. Let me go check their schedule." She left the room and re-entered a few minutes later with the surgeon. He looked at the spot and said a few polite things and excused himself for a moment. When he returned he said, "I don't like the looks of that, it needs to come off, and it needs to come off now. I've rearranged my schedule and we're going to take you right in." Okay, at this point I got worried. I looked at him and asked -- qualifying my question with the fact that I've had friends and relatives talk about having skin cancers removed with little concern -- how serious is this. His reply was, "I think its melanoma, and that's serious. If I'm right, this could cost you your life."All of my blood rushed from my head to my stomach and I was S-C-A-R-E-D.
They removed the lesion that day and sent it off for a rushed biopsy. I went home and started researching melanoma on the web. EVERYTHING that I read was grim, grave, and very frightening. My sense of dread just grew and the worry got deeper and deeper.
The next morning, at 8:03am, the doctor called and I found out that it was in fact a malignant melanoma. They had gone ahead and scheduled me to see another doctor at the regional medical center for the next day.
That was three weeks ago. Since then I've had a PET scan, blood tests, a Sentinal Node Mapping procedure, and finally, surgery to remove an even larger margin of skin from my shoulder and to remove key "Sentinal" lymph nodes from my armpit for biopsy. After a week of waiting, after the surgery, I heard back from the biopsy, and hankfully, NO CANCEROUS CELLS WERE FOUND!
This brings us to the present. I'm recovering very well from the surgery. Since the incision, and removed skin, were on the top of my shoulder, they've had me keeping my right arm isolated and still to keep from pulling on the incision. As a result, I've been homebound, unable to drive, and I've had a lot of extra time on my hands. I've had plenty of time to prepare for bad news, plenty of time to research melanoma, and since finding out the results of my biopsy, I've had time to consider just how damned lucky I am.
Melanoma accounts for 77% of all deaths from skin cancer. Each year more than 7800 people in the US die from melanoma; yet, with early detection and treatment, the cure rate for melanoma is around 95%. I can't tell you how stupid I felt over the past few weeks, fearing that this thing that might kill me, was completely curable if paid attention to soon enough. So, that's why I decided to talk about it here today. If you've got a mole on your body that has changed, or a spot that looks suspicious, go see a dermatologist and have it checked out.
It's great to be back in touch with my IAM friends! Sorry that I was away for so long!
Catching Up...
2005/01/28 13:45 It's been a very long time since I've left an update here, so I figured it was about time that I did! I don't even know where to start!
Perhaps the best thing is to just say that the move went well, I'm settled in to life in North Carolina, the holidays were good. It's all been pretty routine and normal life. That is to say, until after the first of the year.
I've had a spot on my right shoulder for a couple of years. I don't know when it appeared or if its always been there. At any rate, back a few years ago, when I first started getting inked, I had a few people tell me "Dude, you should have that looked at." Well, I meant to have it looked at, but never really got around to it. From my point of view it just looked like a big, flat, mole, something that the doctor would probably want to remove, but no big deal. Fast-forward to my dermatology appointment a little over 3 weeks ago.
The dermatologist walked in and took a look at the spot. "Yeah, that should come off, and we'll want to biopsy it. The surgeon will probably want to do it next week. Let me go check their schedule." She left the room and re-entered a few minutes later with the surgeon. He looked at the spot and said a few polite things and excused himself for a moment. When he returned he said, "I don't like the looks of that, it needs to come off, and it needs to come off now. I've rearranged my schedule and we're going to take you right in." Okay, at this point I got worried. I looked at him and asked -- qualifying my question with the fact that I've had friends and relatives talk about having skin cancers removed with little concern -- how serious is this. His reply was, "I think its melanoma, and that's serious. If I'm right, this could cost you your life."All of my blood rushed from my head to my stomach and I was S-C-A-R-E-D.
They removed the lesion that day and sent it off for a rushed biopsy. I went home and started researching melanoma on the web. EVERYTHING that I read was grim, grave, and very frightening. My sense of dread just grew and the worry got deeper and deeper.
The next morning, at 8:03am, the doctor called and I found out that it was in fact a malignant melanoma. They had gone ahead and scheduled me to see another doctor at the regional medical center for the next day.
That was three weeks ago. Since then I've had a PET scan, blood tests, a Sentinal Node Mapping procedure, and finally, surgery to remove an even larger margin of skin from my shoulder and to remove key "Sentinal" lymph nodes from my armpit for biopsy. After a week of waiting, after the surgery, I heard back from the biopsy, and hankfully, NO CANCEROUS CELLS WERE FOUND!
This brings us to the present. I'm recovering very well from the surgery. Since the incision, and removed skin, were on the top of my shoulder, they've had me keeping my right arm isolated and still to keep from pulling on the incision. As a result, I've been homebound, unable to drive, and I've had a lot of extra time on my hands. I've had plenty of time to prepare for bad news, plenty of time to research melanoma, and since finding out the results of my biopsy, I've had time to consider just how damned lucky I am.
Melanoma accounts for 77% of all deaths from skin cancer. Each year more than 7800 people in the US die from melanoma; yet, with early detection and treatment, the cure rate for melanoma is around 95%. I can't tell you how stupid I felt over the past few weeks, fearing that this thing that might kill me, was completely curable if paid attention to soon enough. So, that's why I decided to talk about it here today. If you've got a mole on your body that has changed, or a spot that looks suspicious, go see a dermatologist and have it checked out.
It's great to be back in touch with my IAM friends! Sorry that I was away for so long!
