Featured Fighter – Steph Lindsay

February 27, 2013
By: Steph Lindsay

BASIC INFO:

Name: Steph Lindsay
Age: 32
Hometown: Chatham, ON
Occupation: Respiratory Therapist
Diagnosis: Stage 3 Malignant Melanoma
If you were a professional boxer or wrestler, what would your name be? Princess Peach

HER FRIGHT:

I had this mole near my bra line that was pretty ugly. In 2008 I was living in the US and when I came home an old friend said it didn’t look familiar. I went to a dermatologist and he said, (with an eye roll I swear) “That’s nothing. The skin around the mole is just irritated.” So I went about my life. 2009 Moved back to the US – Hawaii, baby! Played in the sun and the ocean, worked, partied, etc. Friends there told me to “get that mole checked out” but I figured I had, and the derm said it was nothing! It was itchy often; it got bigger and scabby sometimes.

When I got back home in July 2010, I decided to have it removed. It was just ugly and I was tired of the comments. I called the derm but I needed a new referral. I got in to see my GP in September 2010, and she referred me to a surgeon. In January 2011 it was finally removed in outpatient surgery. The days before I was on a beach in Mexico with my fam and I said to my mom, “It’s definitely cancer, it’s so gross.” I knew from my healthcare background that it looked like cancer. I don’t know if I really, truly knew what that would mean. I figured it would get removed and that would be the end of it. Moley, moley, moley would just be gone!

February 3rd, 2011, my mom called me crying. The surgeon had left a message at home for me to come in. I had just moved to Toronto, so I called his office. He told me it was melanoma and I would need surgery ASAP. All I could think about was my trip to Hawaii that was supposed to happen in 3 weeks. I work at a hospital in T.O., so I made some calls to see about getting surgery done there. In the next few days I saw an oncologist, who referred me to a surgeon I worked with often. He made some calls to the plastic surgeon and booked me for February 11th. There was barely time to think or be scared.

I just wanted to get it done. I needed a wide excision to make sure they got the right margins around the mole, and a sentinel lymph node biopsy. When I met with plastics she drew out where the scar would be on my back. It was huge. They would maybe need a skin graft since my back wasn’t fatty enough (yay me) and it would be fairly tight pulling the scar together. I asked whether we could wait or if I’d be able to still go to Hawaii in 3 weeks. Haha. No! I was so clueless. There would be drains and a huge wound. Then she said I would need chemo after the surgery. WHAT? That blew me away and scared me for the first time. It wasn’t just a “cut it out and move on” kinda cancer anymore. I knew all about this chemo business. Cancer has made the rounds through my family and I had 2 uncles pass away despite chemo. Just thinking about it now makes my stomach turn.

I walked to my supervisor’s office to give her my note to be off work. (Oh yeah, I had just started a temporary Part time position.) I bawled in her office… and we are not close. I just never thought I would need chemo. It was the scariest thought.

HER FIGHT:

Surgery happened on the 11th. I had pretty good treatment since I was an employee. I went home to my parents’ to recover. There was a giant chunk out of my right shoulder/back with lovely drains to empty, and a teeny cut in my right armpit. It took longer than expected to get the drains out and then the SLNB came back positive. It had already spread. That meant Stage 3 by my calculations. Ugh. How quick does that happen? What if it had been removed in September when I first saw my GP? What about when I had seen the stupid dermatologist in 2008?

March 11th, 2011, I had a Right Axillary Lymph node Dissection. That included a lovely drain as well. And then it was complicated with a seroma (blood and fluid that formed a golf ball in my armpit) and pain beyond belief. Of course they gave me drugs, but they just made me stupid the next morning, never killing the pain at night. Back at home with Mom and Dad again.

There were many follow-ups, fluid aspirations, removals of other sketchy moles, meetings with my oncologist, and scans up the wazoo. Head, chest, abdo CT. Bone scans, x-rays, blood work. “T3N1M?” said the oncologist. Melanoma is a funny little cancer that spreads to the really good spots, like the brain or the lungs, but it’s totally unpredictable. Fortunately, everything came back ok and we moved on to treatment.

April 11th, 2011, (something about 11s,) I started high dose Interferon Alpha 2B. Monday-Friday in the oncology clinic for 4 weeks, then 11 months of injections 3 times a week at home. Chemo and radiation don’t have much effect on melanoma, so the best chance is to remove it with surgery. Interferon is immunotherapy. Boost your immune system to keep the melanoma from coming back. Awful side effects, varied success rates, as most people can’t take the whole 12 months, research not 100% positive it’s worth it. Great. I struggled a bit with this. I went to the hospital library and printed dozens of studies to decide what to do. I was pretty healthy and not into taking drugs for any reason before all this… so did I want the toxins and the side effects for a whole year? But if not, would I always worry about it returning and if I had made the wrong choice? Well, I came to the conclusion that as a young person, the benefits outweighed the risks and I could do the year.

It was tough. The high-dose month I was pretty much in bed or on the couch. Interferon is the protein that is released when you get a virus… so think of how you feel when you get the flu and multiply it by a thousand. Muscle aches, bone aches, nausea, headaches, shivering, sweating, no appetite, etc. My 31st birthday (April 26th) was the only day I vomited… but it could have been the cupcakes.

I spent some days alone in the clinic. People offered to come but I didn’t want to burden them. I would just sleep, listen to music and talk to the nurses. Sometimes my coworkers would pop in for a visit since it was just down the hall. My mom came and stayed for the first 2 weeks, but I sent her to be with my dad who was diagnosed with kidney cancer in March and had appointments, surgeries, and tests going on too. I didn’t want him going through it alone.

From February until June 2011, I mostly worried about work. I was paying for an apartment in T.O. that wasn’t cheap. I just kept waiting for the go-ahead. But after I started the low-dose, I didn’t feel better like I had hoped. I was weak, tired, I’d lost 20 pounds, and I still had issues with my right shoulder from the surgeries and tightness. Plus I had a suppressed bone marrow, so I couldn’t be around infectious people. They’re pretty much the only people my job involves! So I couldn’t go back to work. That was really hard to deal with. I gave up my apartment and moved home with my parents. At 32 years old, I was living in their basement. Not the original plan!

It was a long year. My friends were all working, travelling, dating, having babies, planning weddings. I was watching a lot of TV. I tried knitting and reading, but I couldn’t focus. Walking the dog 20 minutes each morning was the most I could manage. 3 nights a week I barely slept from the pain, and the drugs never really helped.

FIGHTING HER FRIGHT:

I lived in a small town, so I didn’t have a lot of cancer community support. When I went to T.O. every month to see my oncologist, I would pop into Wellspring for Gentle Yoga. I wish there were Wellsprings everywhere, or even online access to the classes. I tried yoga classes at studios near home, but everyone was so healthy. It just wasn’t the same.

I took a wheel pottery class at the local gallery and joined a children’s recorder class. Hot cross buns! Haha. It got me out of the house every week, and was nice to distract myself with learning new things.

I lived at home with my parents, which was a challenge for my pride and independence at first, but my Mom is amazing. Despite that both my Dad and I were sick, she never complained. I initially had a lot of rules about what I would and would not eat (meat, sugar, processed foods, etc.) but it was too much for her and I couldn’t really manage the cooking, so I relaxed my rules while I was home. Friends would visit when they were in town, and my last month of treatment they made me a countdown of silly cards and notes!

Some of the biggest challenges are still happening. I finished treatment in April 2012 and moved back to Toronto in July. I’m still not working much… I lost my position at work, so I’m not getting many shifts and the job search is a bit daunting right now. Plus, I feel overwhelmed by the reintegration. I was travelling and partying and more carefree before I got sick. Everyone else kept moving while I was on the couch. I’m still figuring out where I fit now. Can I move away again? Healthcare abroad is worrisome now, and being away from family is a tough choice to make. I miss my life in Hawaii, but I’m not so sure living in a sunny, beachy place is the best place for me.

I’m happy to have gone to a YACC retreat in July. I made some good friends and the group in Toronto gets together often. It’s nice to voice thoughts I can’t share with others. I always try to appear strong and avoid self-pity with most people. I feel like my cancer babes can handle it if I’m not always upbeat and positive. It’s just part of my whole package.

I’m also taking a writing class on grief. It’s nice to be creative in grieving the situation. I really recommend exploring emotions in a creative way. Art classes, pottery, and writing really help me cope. Even if I’m not very good at any of them, I enjoy it.