Has anyone else been diagnosed with metastatic basal cell carcinoma?
SW
Community Member
18 days agoHi everyone, I had a large basal cell tumor removed from the top potion of my skull five years ago on April 7, 2021. The surgery lasted 12 hours. The head and neck surgeon removed the very large tumor which he found had already infiltrated some of the skull bone. Rather than removing a portion of my skull and replacing it with a plate, he chose to shave down a section of my skull bone until he reached a clean margin. Then the plastic surgeon took over and removed a muscle from my left upper back to form a skin flap over my skull and attach the blood supply to the veins near the top and front of my left ear. Following that came a skin graft from both my thighs to cover the exposed muscle.
Radiation followed in 4 weeks for a total of 32 visits. Upon my follow up after radiation, the surgeon who removed the tumor suggested that he would like a CT scan of my lungs, because if the cancer were to spread, that would be the most likely place. Well, lucky me, I had a tumor in my upper left lobe of my lung. On October 2, 2021, I had a 6 hour surgery to remove the upper left lobe of my lung.
I could handle the shock of permanently loosing my hair on the left side of my head and on the crown of my head. I can’t wear a wig because they irritate my skin graft because the skin graft is so fragile from the 5 weeks of radiation treatments. What prompted me to go into a downward spiral was the fact that the tumor in my lung was basal cell carcinoma.
My question is that I would like to know if there is anyone else on this site that has been diagnosed with metastatic basal cell carcinoma?
I would like to hear about your treatments and how you are dealing with this diagnosis? Thank you,
Suzanne living in the Chicago area.
