Cancer Clear and Simple
Welcome to 'Cancer Clear and Simple,' the podcast dedicated to simplifying cancer. Join us as we discuss the world of cancer, breaking down complex concepts for our listening audience. One of our goals is to equip individuals and families dealing with cancer by providing clear, and concise insights. Through personal stories, expert interviews and practical tips, listeners are enabled to make informed decisions. Whether you're a patient, caregiver, or just simply wanting information, tune in to 'Cancer Clear and Simple' for a easy-to-follow guide on understanding and coping with cancer.
Cancer Clear and Simple
Michael’s Stage 3 Melanoma Story
What happens when the person designing cancer treatment technology suddenly becomes the patient? In this powerful episode, software engineer Michael Wilson shares his journey from coding radiotherapy machines to battling stage 3 melanoma. He explains cancer in simple terms, reveals how immunotherapy and radiation work, and talks openly about his family’s experiences with leukemia and melanoma. Michael also discusses genetic screening, rare diagnoses, and the importance of prevention and support networks like Gilda’s Club. This is an honest, hopeful, and surprisingly relatable look at life, technology, and resilience.
So welcome. And first let's start out with the name and then what brings your story here today. I work for a company out here in Madison. It's called Sun Nuclear. We write software for their radiotherapy department. Okay, we do independent quality assurance for machine diagnostics to make sure that the actual linear accelerators are working correctly in spec. And we have a second half of that which is the patient aspect. So if you go in for radiotherapy treatment, we verify that the treatment is all correct. You're getting the correct dose.
Speaker 2:You know, everything is valid. That was six years ago. Unfortunately, a few years ago I kind of ran into my own journey, so to speak and. I had developed cancer so I had stage three melanoma that I had been treated for here at Carbone. And yeah, it's interesting. I had never imagined really when I started working on software that I would just basically be in it in some sense. They do use the software here to some extent, so yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 1:So for those that don't know what kind of cancer is melanoma?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's a skin cancer. It is unfortunately, the deadliest form of skin cancer and mine had gone stage three, meaning it had been found in the lymph nodes yeah so yeah, I can't exactly remember.
Speaker 2:I think it was maybe in a few lymph nodes in my left armpit or the left axillary area, sure? Um, I had gone on an immunotherapy treatment and unfortunately, a few years later I guess it would be a couple of years ago or no, sorry, no, I get it wrong a few more you know, I guess about six months ago now it had come back in my, in my, uh, my left, my left armpit again.
Speaker 2:Um, so, you know you, you fight the fight and you go on to the next treatment. Um, you know, my, my oncologist still believes I'm gonna be okay and I, I, I guess, I agree, I think I'm going to be beating it.
Speaker 1:Sure sure.
Speaker 2:And much thanks to the people at Carbone, so it's a great facility here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much for just jumping in and sharing your personal story so much. Can you just help understand a little or bring us into the before and after in terms of a diagnosis? What types of things did you think about cancer before?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean, it was really, you know, from a professional standpoint, my family had had it. I mean, we all probably know somebody at this point who has had cancer. So, yeah, I guess, you know, I thought of it more just of like, what other people got, I would never get it. I was still young and you know, I was about 30 at the time, sure. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know, it was very shocking to receive the news. And then, yeah, I don't know, afterwards it's I don't know. It's a journey that I wish upon nobody really. I mean, it's quite a mental challenge and for many people it's a very physical challenge as well, as you go through chemotherapy and all sorts of other treatments. For me, my treatment has been not very difficult. Thankfully, the immunotherapies, generally speaking, are very good as far as avoidance of side effects is concerned.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, wow, I appreciate your candidness, your just openness with sharing this of yourself and stuff like that, so I just want to, you know, understand a little bit as well as, like you, had a very specific professional understanding of cancer before this happened.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yep, can you, could you could you just like outline what a general definition of cancer would be for somebody who doesn't understand what cancer is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, I guess he had to explain like I'm five, right, so it's your own body that has gone astray. You know it's your own cells and they get, um, um, they, they, um, they, they. They get it a little weird with their genetics and so they're, they're made of you and that makes treatments so hard. That's why it's been very hard over the course to find good treatment options, because your actual, your immune system tends to not generally want to go after cancer, basically because it's made of you Okay.
Speaker 2:And so there's a new field out there. It's relatively modern, maybe in the last decade or 15 years, maybe called immunotherapy, and that's helping your own immune system identify the cancers and so it can actually use your own immune system to fight, and that has been a very powerful tool in the fight against cancer. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for everybody. It did not work for me, but you know it does work for many people and it's a very powerful tool. But yeah, it's, your own cells have gone astray and they are replicating at a very fast rate. So at that fast rate, that's, you know, we talk. The field that I'm more familiar with is the radiotherapy field, right? So essentially, you get hit with very, very powerful x-ray. It's an invisible beam of light, you can't see it and, yeah, a machine will go over your body and hit you with this high dose x-ray. The reason why generally, this works is because your cells are replicating much more rapidly than your cells, your normal cells, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And that makes it more susceptible to this kind of damage. The fact that replicating makes its DNA more fragile, and so that makes it a particular target for the radiotherapy. That's generally how that works.
Speaker 1:Okay, yep, yep, okay, and I'm a little bit more interested as well as, like your specific technical yeah, let's get into it, so okay. So what is your training and how did you get into the technology side of radiotherapies?
Speaker 2:You know it's. I wish I had a great story for this. I just went to school into, you know, software and information systems. My, truly my specialty is more in software and software programming itself. So I'm not a medical expert, I don't really have a medical background, so to speak. But yeah, I got a job up in La Crosse and, just you know, fate would have it, a position had opened up at the Sun Nuclear Company out here in Middleton actually, and lo and behold, yeah, it would just kind of start there.
Speaker 1:The reason that I wanted to understand that is because we're also interested in how we're creating the pipeline into being able to have impact in these ways in these fields, and you're the first person that I've met specifically that has software experience.
Speaker 2:That's surprising with so many software people out here with us.
Speaker 1:But I guess, yeah. So just the usefulness, the versatility of that training and how it applies to the medical field specifically this form of therapy for cancer, is really cool and intriguing for me to understand, also just the industry that is here in our kind of backyard. Right we have the UW Carbone Cancer Center, which is a top tier comprehensive cancer center in the country, and so just being able to know how other people can get involved in what cancer is, and so maybe can you share a little bit about, like before, before your diagnosis, how did you understand when your family was going through it, like what was that experience of learning somebody else got diagnosed and how you were there to experience that side of yeah, so even before I was diagnosed, my mother had had well gosh, it was leukemia, thank you, you get a little brain freeze, but, yeah, leukemia.
Speaker 2:And it was an acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which is an aggressive form of leukemia. But there is some chance for a cure, which is the one good thing that people can maybe hold on to if you get such a diagnosis. She had fought very hard on this and after a certain number of treatments she did eventually get to a point where she could beat it. I believe it was a stem cell infusion that helped her get over that. But yeah, for the years to come she would fight this graft versus host sort of disease. Unfortunately, and then she had passed a few years after that. So it's been on the mind of our family for a long time. Cancer and, yeah, her sister, my mom's sister, of course, my aunt she had had a melanoma, just like myself. Unfortunately, hers had gotten deep, deep into stage four. She had many, many tumors from her brain all the way down to her feet, basically.
Speaker 1:So Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, yep, it's on the mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and with your family having a lot of familiarity with it. What was screening conversations like, yeah?
Speaker 2:Oh well, that's a good question. I don't know that we really did any screening, really. Yeah, we didn't received treatment. So because of my aunt getting all this melanoma, my doctor here at Carbone had recommended I get an actual genetic test to see if this melanoma would be hereditary in any way.
Speaker 2:Okay, it turns out that it seems as though it wasn't At least that's the state of the science today. But they did unfortunately find some genetic marker, an abnormal genetic marker, in there that would make me a bit susceptible to some other kind of tumor cancer kind of thing. It's a bit medically gray what this is, but it's a paraganglioma. So unfortunately now I'm back in the system. It's a bit medically gray what this is, but it's a paraganglioma. That Ooh. So unfortunately now I'm back in the system.
Speaker 1:I now have a paraganglioma issue.
Speaker 2:So it's a much, it's not as dire as a treatment as like a later stage melan melanoma, but it's quite rare. Actually, from what I can see, it's about two and one million individuals will will get this, so I'm very thankful, in a way, to have gotten this screening. I mean, such a thing could have have been in there for a while. I certainly encourage anybody out there who you know was thinking of getting a screening to absolutely do so, whether that be a colon screening or a genetic screening or anything?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I also just like to step back just a half a step, just in terms of do you know the difference between screening and testing, or is that something that's different in your mind?
Speaker 2:I guess, in my mind I think of screening as more an attempt to see if you're susceptible to a certain cancer, and testing would be, I guess, of a suspicion that you could have a cancer.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes. And so, with what I've seen and understood in this role is that screening is when you don't have symptoms right, and testing is more of you know something.
Speaker 2:Take a sample, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're trying to figure out what it is versus what it's not. And so what questions do you have, or did you have, for your doctor in this process and in this journey have or did you?
Speaker 2:have for your doctor in this process and in this journey. I mean there's so many questions that go through your mind, I mean for better or worse. I mean you really want to come to terms with what exactly the prognosis is.
Speaker 1:How dire it is, I mean, you really can get, it can get in your head. Would there be something that you would advise somebody to ask of their doctor?
Speaker 2:Now, that's a good question. Hmm, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think people are going to know.
Speaker 2:I think, I think, I think people are probably going to know when they get a cancer diagnosis. Okay, I think they'll probably know what questions are on their mind so to speak.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just trying to pull in people who are listening and give them some sage advice or anything like that.
Speaker 2:What would you— I mean I would say for those listening to this podcast you're in very good hands here at Carbone. I mean, this is a very, very elite cancer center and you know you are in very good hands here. So try and rest assured, you know, hang in there, you're in good hands Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then any other parting words or thoughts that you would like to share, just in terms of your story, is very powerful, and I appreciate your just the energy that I'm feeling in terms of not only your willingness to share it, but just you talked a little bit of, maybe about a mindset as well in terms of what you got to, and so anything in that general sense.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know. It's just it's hard to know what life is going to throw your direction. You know, like I had said, I'd never thought that this would happen to me and um, being in the field myself, and um, I don't want to make anybody scared, but it certainly can. And um, you know you should try and you know, get screened if you're.
Speaker 1:if you, you should wear sunscreen, of course and take it seriously, but rest assured, at the same time there's good people out there. Oh yeah, absolutely Okay. Well, thank you so very much, mike. I really appreciate it. Anything cool that you saw out there in the open house space.
Speaker 2:Well, of course, I guess I'm biased in this regard, but they have a little sample linear accelerator out there and those at home could go ahead and Google what that machine is if you're unaware. But they had the delivering fake radiation to a little Barbie doll and you could see the linear accelerator rotate over the patient, so it was very, very good to see. Okay, you have an example of it.
Speaker 1:So anyways, awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time here and everything that you've been able to share with us.
Speaker 2:Happy to share. Yep, thanks so much. All right, all right, thank you so much. Excellent, thank you, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:We're still rolling, we, oh yeah. We're still rolling, we can cut yeah.
Speaker 2:Cut it back in. Yeah, we're still rolling.
Speaker 1:Is there anybody that? Oh okay, is there anybody that you would like to shout out or give another nod to?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I've actually been attending the Gilda's Club out in Middleton for about the past year and they're a very great facility. They have great programs and can help people navigate this world if they so find themselves in that.
Speaker 1:So it's a very great resource here in Madison and Gilda's Club.
Speaker 2:They do oh well, they do everything. They have all sorts of things out there. I encourage you to look at the program it's. It almost seems like every day there's something going out there, whether it's just nature strolls, or you can learn about it or reach out to other people who are facing the same thing to. You know, help, share and you know communicate with people.
Speaker 1:Oh, so they're a general support. Yeah, yeah, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just wanted to make sure I got that clear.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. Okay, yep, yep, they're a support group out in Middleton, gilda's Club.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, okay, thank you so much. Yep, okay, thank you.
