Melanoma Patient Stories

Finding the Right Care  

Between late 2022 and mid-2025, I underwent multiple surgeries, immunotherapies, radiation treatments, and ultimately tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL)—a type of immune cell therapy. Bleeding from a tiny skin spot on my shoulder led me to Dr. Santoro, my dermatologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center. The team moved quickly after my 2022 diagnosis; the melanoma had spread to lymph nodes under my left arm.

Toward the end of 2019, I started having pain on my right side. I finally went to my primary care doctor in January of 2020, and she sent me to get a CT scan. It didn’t show anything, but the pain wasn’t going away, so she sent me to get an MRI with contrast. I was out to lunch with a girlfriend when my doctor called and told me, “Diane, I’m so sorry, but you have a tumor.”

Twelve years ago, when I was 59 years old, I was diagnosed with squamous cell cancer of the tongue. I had some pain on the left side of my tongue, and I unfortunately ignored it. I thought it would go away. Eventually, I got it looked at and it turned out to be cancer. That’s how I began my journey at Fox Chase Cancer Center.

In 2014, just after turning 67, I noticed a spot on my leg. When I went to see a dermatologist near where I live in Forked River, New Jersey, he diagnosed me with melanoma. I was really surprised. I’m dark-skinned—Italian—and melanoma is not common in dark-skinned people. I never used tanning beds or laid out a lot in the sun, but I guess it can happen to anyone.

I’m 64 years old and live in Yardley, Pennsylvania, which is just north of Philadelphia. I’m retired now, but I spent many years doing social justice work and fundraising for nonprofits. It was a busy life, which is why, when I developed a lesion on my left shin, I didn’t pay attention to it. Then, literally overnight in 2015, it got really bad. I wound up in the hospital, where they diagnosed me with stage IV melanoma—skin cancer.