1/25/2012

Black Out Night

On Saturday Billy and I drove to Aiken, SC to finally meet Meredith!  I have told many of  you about Meredith over the past few months and it was awesome to finally meet her in person!  Meredith is 24 years old and also battling metastatic ocular melanoma.  We both go to Philadelphia to see Dr. Sato and Dr. Gonsalves for treatment.

We have A LOT in common.  They say about 6 in 1 million people are diagnosed with ocular melanoma.  About 3 of those 6 people will have melanoma spread to another part of their body.  Unfortunately, we fall into that very small population. 

Get ready for the weird part...
We are among the youngest people to get diagnosed with this cancer. 
We were both originally diagnosed in 2009, within 2 months of each other. 
We both went to Hopewell High School. 
Our Dad's were fraternity brothers at UNC at the same time (Go Heels!)

The coincidences really make you wonder and our doctors are still shocked by all of the similarities!  I absolutely hate that the two of us are battling this terrible cancer but I am thankful that we have each other.  Meredith is the only person in the world who can understand what goes through my mind on a daily basis and she is a great support system! 


Meredith played basketball at USC-Aiken and every year they host a "Black Out Night" to honor her and to raise money and awareness for ocular melanoma.  I also got to meet another OM patient, Brian, who gets treated by my same doctor at Dook.  Brian was diagnosed in 2007 and thank the Lord he is cancer free to this day!  We are all left eye OM patients and it was cool to share stories and experiences with them.  




My next appointment with Dr. Sato and the team is scheduled for 1:30 pm on Monday.  I got my MRI and CT scans done in Charleston this past Monday and I sent them up to Dr. Sato to review.  These appointments are challenging because we don't know what to expect.  Billy and I try not to dwell on things and we live life as if everything is totally normal when we are at home...and we have a lot of FUN doing it! I continue to feel amazing and certainly nothing like a cancer patient.  I am confident that the news this time around will be just as good as it was last time.  I look forward to having a celebratory dinner with Billy on Monday night! 

4 comments:

  1. Wow! That is so awesome that you and Meredith have each other! What a great picture!

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  2. Our prayers are with you, what an amazing story of fate.

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  3. Great story, what a wonderful connection. Thinking of you. Xoxo

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