Chele60

I've talked to people who have been staged with multiple levels of melanoma, and continue to be. I've read blogs from people who have kept records during their treatment from day 1, who are no longer with us. I was always anxious to find out - what other symptoms were there? Did they know when they had gone from stage II to stage III? Or from stage III to stage IV? I've talked to people who had lesions on their lungs, brains, bones, and livers. I'm thinking some one had to feel something at some time, right??

Wrong. Except for the brain, and sometimes with the bones, most people simply did not feel anything different when melanoma began attacking the liver or the lungs. And this is stage IV melanoma! There was no shortness of breath, no chest pains, no jaundice, no weakness, no fatique. When the lesions on the brain became involved, there were headaches. And when the bones were involved, there was achiness. But many times, these were discounted at first.

Simply put, melanoma, especially in its earliest stages, really has no other symptoms. But then, most cancers in their earliest stages don't, either. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer through a mammogram, and she felt great.

If you say you feel tired, and melanoma occurs, I could see where that would be easy to say the two are related. But what will you do if you experience fatigue and there is no melanoma? It might help to document this, perhaps keep a journal. That might help you to see and reflect on what is happening. There are a lot of people out there in the blogging world who have melanoma (at all stages) who keep blogs as a way of releasing their anxiety, anger, frustration. And sometimes others can give them just the words they need to hear.