Greetings all,

I am a 43-year old male who has been recently diagnosed as having
Clark's Level 2 melanoma, and now is in the process of gaining as much
information on the disease as possible.

I am fair-skinned and live in a sunny place, so I have who has been
seeing a skin doctor twice a year for about 8 years for basic treatment
of various precancerous things -- usually the doctor freezes the
precancerous things off, and occasionally he will cut out and biopsy
something.  The biopsies have always come back as benign until
recently.

The melanoma was in the middle of my back (and apparently was
amelanotic...or whatever the word is for having little or no coloring).
After the biopsy of the original dime-sized cutting revealed Clark's
Level 2 melanoma, I went back to my doctor and he cut a huge chunk out
of my back (diamond shaped, about 3 inches long, maybe 3/4 inch wide at
its widest point, and right down to the muscle...if it were a piece of
steak, it would definitely be regarded as too large to put in your
mouth).  That was biopsied and fortunately no evidence of melanoma was
found in that sample at all. [This melanoma-free follow-up biopsy
raised at least some hope in me that the initial diagnosis was some
kind of false positive, but I don't know anything about the false
positive rates of biopsies...that is one of the things I want to
research]

In a couple weeks, I have an appt. with an oncologist who is alleged to
be a melonoma specialist; I know he will want me to have a chest X-ray,
and some kind of liver function analysis (my dermatologist mentioned
these things, but not in particularly specific terms).

Ordinarily, I become very conversant with medical conditions and
procedures which affect me, but melanoma is so terrifying that up until
now, I have been in a state of paralyzed avoidance of melanoma
information.  However, between now and my oncologist appt., I want to
become a minor expert, particularly on things like diagnostic tests
(e.g., interpreting biopsy results, the probative value of chest
X-rays, what tests I should demand, etc.).

Are there any particularly good online melanoma info sites that people
in this newsgroup can refer me to?  I have a pretty good working
knowledge of medical terminolgy and science, but I would prefer an
information source that is not aimed primarily at doctors and medical
researchers.

Thanks in advance for any information and/or direction whatsoever!

Chuck

P.S.  My father has melanoma, so heredity may be to partly to blame
here.  However in his case, one would ordinarily be inclined to put a
good amount of the blame on his cavalier attitude towards sun damage.
I used to get a lot of sun when I was in my teens and maybe early 20's,
but for nearly 20 years, and particularly over the last 10 years, I
have become extremely cautious about sun exposure.  Still, I suspect my
recent melanoma may be partly a function of that relatively ancient
exposure.  For the record, I am a non-smoker, and a moderate drinker of
alcohol.