I've been meaning to post something about this all summer, but after reading this article today, I was definitely inspired.
As most of you already know, I had to have a cancerous mole removed last August. I had a strange spot on my left arm, which just looked like dry skin, that I had become concerned about after it didn't go away after a couple of months. I went to my dermatologist, Dr. Chapman, and she said that she thought it was just an irregular sweat gland. Just in case, she sent it and a couple of other small moles I had to be biopsied.
Needless to say, I was pretty shocked to get a message from her a couple of days later that I needed to return her call as soon as possible. Of course, I got this message at 5 o'clock, and by the time I called her office, she was gone. I did get her nurse, however, who told me that Dr. Chapman had given her the OK to give me her cell phone number if I called after she left. At this point, I pretty much knew something was seriously wrong.
When I called Dr. Chapman, she gave me the news - the biopsy had showed the spot on my arm to be cancerous, although she wasn't sure at that time which kind of skin cancer it was. Apparently it was pretty unusual, so she was having to send it to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to be looked at.
Honestly, even though I write for a living, I don't think it would be possible for me to describe exactly how freaked out I was to get this news. I thought about all the time I had spent during my teenage years and my early twenties in the sun - and even worse, in the tanning bed - and immediately was filled with regret. It's not like I didn't know when I did these things that skin cancer existed - apparently I just thought that being even a little tan (let's be honest, it's not like I was ever able to get a really good tan) was worth the risk.
Of course, I immediately went home and started googling the bejesus out of "skin cancer". All I knew was that I didn't want it to be melanoma - the really dangerous one. The one that actually kills people.
When she called me a few days later, I got some good news and some bad news. The bad news was that it was melanoma. The good news is that she thought it was melanoma in situ, which means that it was only on the surface layer of the skin and hadn't yet spread any deeper. She referred me to a Mohs surgeon (a special skin cancer surgeon) to have it removed immediately.
The week of my surgery was the craziest week of my entire life. First of all, the week before, I had resigned from my job at Alliance Data to accept a position at JCPenney. But right after my diagnosis, I still had to go on a three-day business trip.
While I was gone, our dog, Sadie, got loose and ran away. Our dogs are our babies, so we were just beside ourselves. By the time I got home, she had been missing for two days. We spent all of our free time searching day and night in the neighborhoods around where she had been, putting up posters, visiting shelters and basically going crazy. After a few days of this, I just lost it. I couldn't stop crying, and I got so emotional that it completely freaked Mike out.
That was the moment I knew I was pregnant. I took a test that evening to confirm it, but I knew already before I got the positive. So amid all the sadness over Sadie, we had the best news of our lives.
Did I mention that I also had to take all of my final exams for my summer semester this same week? Because I did...
So, during all this craziness, I had my surgery. I'm not going to lie - it was pretty painful. They took out a piece of my arm about 2 1/2 inches long and a half inch deep. I then had to go sit in the waiting room while they tested the skin to make sure they had gotten all the cancer. Fortunately, they had, and they confirmed the diagnosis that it was in fact, melanoma in situ. Great news!
Just a couple of days later, thank goodness, Mike and I got a call around 7:30 AM one morning that a woman had been out walking her puppy and Sadie had come wandering up to her. She let the woman put her on a leash and take her home. She found our number on Sadie's collar and called us immediately. We went to her house asap and were so happy to be reunited with our baby girl. She was a little dirty and scratched up, but otherwise no worse for the wear after her little nine-day vacation.
Fast-forward almost a year (!), and I am also no worse for the wear. What I am left with is a very unattractive scar on my arm and a quarterly appointment with my dermatologist to "map and measure" my moles. Fun times. The appointments are a constant reminder about what could happen if the cancer were to come back, because next time I might not be so lucky with my diagnosis.
Be sure that you have your doctor or OB/GYN check your skin during your annual physical, or even better, visit a dermatologist once a year to check things out. If it's caught early, skin cancer is highly treatable. If it isn't caught, the outlook isn't nearly so bright.
The lesson here is simple - a tan is not worth dying for. It's not worth the worry I will have to live with for the rest of my life. It's not even worth the stupid scar on my arm. There's nothing I can do to change my past, but I plan on blabbing about what happened to me to anyone who will listen to hope that it might change someone else's future.
As most of you already know, I had to have a cancerous mole removed last August. I had a strange spot on my left arm, which just looked like dry skin, that I had become concerned about after it didn't go away after a couple of months. I went to my dermatologist, Dr. Chapman, and she said that she thought it was just an irregular sweat gland. Just in case, she sent it and a couple of other small moles I had to be biopsied.
Needless to say, I was pretty shocked to get a message from her a couple of days later that I needed to return her call as soon as possible. Of course, I got this message at 5 o'clock, and by the time I called her office, she was gone. I did get her nurse, however, who told me that Dr. Chapman had given her the OK to give me her cell phone number if I called after she left. At this point, I pretty much knew something was seriously wrong.
When I called Dr. Chapman, she gave me the news - the biopsy had showed the spot on my arm to be cancerous, although she wasn't sure at that time which kind of skin cancer it was. Apparently it was pretty unusual, so she was having to send it to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to be looked at.
Honestly, even though I write for a living, I don't think it would be possible for me to describe exactly how freaked out I was to get this news. I thought about all the time I had spent during my teenage years and my early twenties in the sun - and even worse, in the tanning bed - and immediately was filled with regret. It's not like I didn't know when I did these things that skin cancer existed - apparently I just thought that being even a little tan (let's be honest, it's not like I was ever able to get a really good tan) was worth the risk.
Of course, I immediately went home and started googling the bejesus out of "skin cancer". All I knew was that I didn't want it to be melanoma - the really dangerous one. The one that actually kills people.
When she called me a few days later, I got some good news and some bad news. The bad news was that it was melanoma. The good news is that she thought it was melanoma in situ, which means that it was only on the surface layer of the skin and hadn't yet spread any deeper. She referred me to a Mohs surgeon (a special skin cancer surgeon) to have it removed immediately.
The week of my surgery was the craziest week of my entire life. First of all, the week before, I had resigned from my job at Alliance Data to accept a position at JCPenney. But right after my diagnosis, I still had to go on a three-day business trip.
While I was gone, our dog, Sadie, got loose and ran away. Our dogs are our babies, so we were just beside ourselves. By the time I got home, she had been missing for two days. We spent all of our free time searching day and night in the neighborhoods around where she had been, putting up posters, visiting shelters and basically going crazy. After a few days of this, I just lost it. I couldn't stop crying, and I got so emotional that it completely freaked Mike out.
That was the moment I knew I was pregnant. I took a test that evening to confirm it, but I knew already before I got the positive. So amid all the sadness over Sadie, we had the best news of our lives.
Did I mention that I also had to take all of my final exams for my summer semester this same week? Because I did...
So, during all this craziness, I had my surgery. I'm not going to lie - it was pretty painful. They took out a piece of my arm about 2 1/2 inches long and a half inch deep. I then had to go sit in the waiting room while they tested the skin to make sure they had gotten all the cancer. Fortunately, they had, and they confirmed the diagnosis that it was in fact, melanoma in situ. Great news!
Just a couple of days later, thank goodness, Mike and I got a call around 7:30 AM one morning that a woman had been out walking her puppy and Sadie had come wandering up to her. She let the woman put her on a leash and take her home. She found our number on Sadie's collar and called us immediately. We went to her house asap and were so happy to be reunited with our baby girl. She was a little dirty and scratched up, but otherwise no worse for the wear after her little nine-day vacation.
Fast-forward almost a year (!), and I am also no worse for the wear. What I am left with is a very unattractive scar on my arm and a quarterly appointment with my dermatologist to "map and measure" my moles. Fun times. The appointments are a constant reminder about what could happen if the cancer were to come back, because next time I might not be so lucky with my diagnosis.
Be sure that you have your doctor or OB/GYN check your skin during your annual physical, or even better, visit a dermatologist once a year to check things out. If it's caught early, skin cancer is highly treatable. If it isn't caught, the outlook isn't nearly so bright.
The lesson here is simple - a tan is not worth dying for. It's not worth the worry I will have to live with for the rest of my life. It's not even worth the stupid scar on my arm. There's nothing I can do to change my past, but I plan on blabbing about what happened to me to anyone who will listen to hope that it might change someone else's future.
3 comments:
Nice post Robin. Another thing to note is that there are new studies out proving that people who use tanning beds are way more susceptible to skin cancer, and the majority of those people are women. It's kind of a no brainer, but it takes awhile to do a good study and tanning beds are fairly new. They should be against the law or at least have a warning, like maybe a nice picture of a person who has lost part of their ear or nose to skin cancer. Maybe that would put a few people off.
I hope people read your post and learn from it!
Great post! I have been trying to be more diligent in my sunscreen applying and re-applying this year.
Many years ago (high school), I had a large mole removed because it had mutated. When we got the phone call a week later saying it was benign, I could tell my mom (a cancer survivor) almost choked up telling me that everything was okay. At the time, I was like, uh- calm down, thinking since they obviously took off the mole, they obviously took away any sort of cancer. I was so naive. I really never knew (until now) what would have happened if it had been cancerous. I am so glad everything turned out well for you and I think this is a great message!
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