After being diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma, Wendy knew that there was only one thing she could do - fight.
Wendy's Story
"I learned the hard way that melanoma is not just about the skin."
I had a mole on my neck, and it was something that really stood out to everybody around me. I knew it wasn't a good thing, but I always made excuses, like, "My brothers wedding is coming up and I don't want a scar, so I'll just deal with it later," or "I'm busy this week." When it got to a point where people wouldn't stop taunting me about it, I got it checked. It was removed immediately, biopsied and came back as stage 1 melanoma. The doctors cut into my neck to do a margin study, and it came back clean. My dermatologist also recommended that I get some blood work and a chest x-ray to make sure everything was okay. My blood work came back clean, and we were all satisfied with that. I didn't get a chest x-ray. Knowing what I know now, I should have.
"People do not realize that melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer."
I wasn't educated about the way melanoma spreads. A year after removing the mole on my neck, I was at work when the left side of my body went limp. It lasted for a couple of weeks. My left leg would drag, and my left arm wouldn't move when I wanted it to. At that point, I didn't think it had anything to do with melanoma. But after some tests, including an MRI and a chest x-ray, the doctors found a tumor on the right side of my brain and two in my left lung - the melanoma had entered my bloodstream. The oncologist said that it was stage 4 melanoma, and I had three to six months left.
"When it all sunk in, I got into fight mode."
In the cancer world, there's no stage 5. Stage 5, you're dead. Stage 4 is kind of it. My parents and I knew that there was no real standard treatment for melanoma and that it was a very tough cancer to treat.
I was very fortunate that my mother, being a cancer survivor herself, was treated in New York at Sloan-Kettering, which is one of the premiere cancer centers in the country. She knew a doctor who knew Lance Armstrong's doctors, so we made phone calls to him. Everybody we spoke to said that I was very lucky to live in the Los Angeles area, because some of the best doctors doing the most aggressive research in melanoma were right here.
"'Get into the most aggressive clinical trial,' the doctors said."
My clinical trial was not about the drugs, it was about the cocktail of them. Some people will get two drugs, and some people will get three, and even though a clinical trial may sound scarier, you're not forgoing any kind of treatment. I was part of a study where everybody was getting 100 percent of the drugs and doctors were trying to figure out if these drugs together worked well.
My treatment included chemotherapy, which injures tumors, and biotherapy, which kills the cancer cells in the tumors. There were definitely some low moments and some side effects, but all I can say is five years have passed, and hello, I'm here!
"Sometimes I hate that title, cancer survivor, because I never looked at it any other way."
From the beginning I realized what I was dealing with. I told myself, "I'm going to beat this. I'm going to live my life and just make this go away." And I did.
Now, I'm really taking a stand on being available in any way possible to get awareness out there. Last year, I decided it was time to do an event. I created an event called Laugh Generously, which was a night of comedy to benefit melanoma research, and our first year out we raised nearly $50,000. The most important thing for me today is to get the message out there& skin cancer is not just about the skin.
