LIVING WITH MELANOMA

My most recent scan results showed I continue to have stable disease. It felt incredible and I wanted to get straight out and enjoy things, having been a little sidetracked and distracted by scanxiety in the preceding weeks. The need to seize the moment is always intensified by the reminder – never actually far from my mind – that other patients I have met and become friends with haven’t been so lucky. I want to get out and squeeze every drop out of life, on their behalf, and in their memory. But as is quite often the case, on results day I wasn’t really well enough to do very much at all – unless you consider going for a very short walk and taking a few photos wild times, then no, my life is fairly quiet these days. This is mainly because I experience fatigue, as a result of the immunotherapy treatment I received. Not just tiredness, but complete and utter exhaustion, and achy joints too.

The fatigue can come on very quickly, and completely unexpectedly; after two years, I still can’t predict how I’ll feel on any given day, based on what I’ve been doing the day before. Sometimes patterns emerge and I think, oh, I just need to do this or that (or not do this or that!), and then my day will be better, and I’ll have the energy to do what I really want to do. But then I’ll realise that there’s just no knowing, and I’ll be completely exhausted from just hanging out the washing. I have to constantly prioritise what matters most, and I’m getting better at it, but it’s still a juggling act every day.

If you help to support someone who has fatigue – not just because of cancer treatment, but for any other health reason – or if someone you know has a long term issue of any kind, following immunotherapy, please try to get a better understanding of what life is like for them, and try to help them to develop strategies to manage their daily routine. If, like me, they are determined to be independent and carry on, as normal as possible, then it can be tricky to know what will help, but the very best thing you can do is to try to gain more insight into how it feels, so that they are only fighting the exhaustion, and not also trying to please everyone else and show them they are doing okay.

I’m so incredibly fortunate to be here, two years on; I’m very lucky, but some days I’m also so very tired!

THINGS I WISH I KNEW WHEN I WAS DIAGNOSED WITH MELANOMA

As written by Susannah Archer

Sadly, Susannah became very ill in early 2022.  She passed away on the 24th February 2022.  We will always remember her.