and here's the e-mail I just sent out...

Dear all,

It isn't real to me yet; the friends I've told are stunned, and I don't even feel it. It's still a scientific puzzle.

My doctor called with my PET scan results. He was sure it would be clean; I look and feel well. I have metastases to my lungs, bones, and "several other places." Apparently they're small enough and diffuse enough so that they're not in my way yet; I can breathe as always, and I haven't had any fractures. They suspect that it spread through my bloodstream.

How can you have stage IV melanoma and feel fine? I don't know. But here I am.

My oncologist in Sac is referring me to a doctor at Kaiser Riverside for treatment; he says that interleukin-2 (immunotherapy requiring multiple hospital admissions, very effective on those for whom it works) is the best thing in the current toolbox for me, and that's where it's done. I haven't talked to the doctor in Riverside yet; I thought he'd call today. I'm hoping I can do the treatments in Sacramento so my friends can visit me.

That's all I know that's even remotely definite. My doctors are as shocked as I am.

I hate what this is doing to the people who love me. It hasn't caught up with me emotionally at all.

I know I'm in your prayers. Please keep holding me there.