That was the last time...

Malignant, malignant…is that good or bad??  What’s the other word?  Benign.  Benign is good.  Oh.  Malignant is bad.  Shit.

“So this wasn’t the outcome we were hoping for,” my dermatologist continued unaware that I am just now catching up to her in the conversation.

I better write this down.  Go back to the car.  Where is some paper?  Do I have paper?  I’ve gotta have paper.  Deposit slip!  Malignant Melanoma.  Referral to a plastic surgeon?  Excise the area.  I know what that is, that is what Brett had done.  I can deal with that.   He seems fine.  Excise lymph nodes.  What is a lymph node?  In my groin?  That sounds horrible.  Oh I am getting scared.  Breath.  Breath.  Breath.   My hands and feet are tingling.  What do I do now?  I can’t drive to work.  I can’t drive home.  I can’t drive at all like this.  Breath.  I'm going to pass out.  Put the seat back and just breath.  Think about something else.  Breath. 

In the bank parking lot, this is where my cancer story starts.  I went to the dermatologist for a rather routine skin check.  I have fair skin, lots of moles and a family member with melanoma.  3 strikes.  I had a mole on my leg that had grown in elevation in the last 6 months.  Sometimes it itched, but not bad, not often.  The dermatologist removed it and covered the spot with a Band-aid.  I went home and didn’t really think about it.  When the dermatologist called me with the results a few days later, my first thought was, “results from what?”  Thursday, September 7^th, 9:04 AM was the last time I didn’t think about cancer.

A week and a day after that call, I was in the operating room having tissue removed from around the area of the original mole.  The doctor has to make sure he gets all of the cancerous tissue in the area, so the incision is much bigger than you would think for a mole that was about a quarter inch in diameter.  I’d say it’s about 5 inches long, starting near my knee going to almost halfway down my shin.  Goodbye dream of a modeling career.  I also had two lymph nodes removed from my groin.  Without getting too much into it, doctors often biopsy the nearest lymph nodes to see if the cancer has spread.  Then home to recover and wait. 

I may be optimistic, or a ‘positive person’ or most likely just in denial, but when the doctor called me with the biopsy results, I was not prepared to hear that it had spread past my leg.  That isn’t what happened to my brother!  I wanted this to be done.  This was supposed to be the end of the story!  They found tumors in my lymph nodes.  Now what?  I was set up with a PET/CT scan and more doctor appointments, this time with an oncologist and a surgeon.  The seriousness had moved past the specialty of the plastic surgeon that did my first surgery. The PET scan is to see if the cancer had moved past my lymph nodes to any other part of my body.  This is when I realized I was no longer a person with a cancerous mole, I am a cancer patient. 

The idea of this alien creeping through my body is horrifying.  It feels like being in a haunted house at the ready for an ugly creature to pop out from a dark corner.  Never able to relax, always waiting to be jolted.  But the haunted house is my own body, there is no leaving, there is no EXIT sign to look forward to. 

The PET/CT scan results came in the next day.  The doctor quickly got to the phrase “the scan looked good.” Yay!  That was amazing news.  OK, I see a glow of an EXIT sign around the corner.  There was no evidence that the cancer had moved to any other parts of my body.  Now I have an idea what I am up against, Stage 3 Cancer. 

If you are interested in learning more about Melanoma visit the American Cancer Society.