Approximately 3 or 4 months ago, I noticed a mole on my leg that had changed. It had gotten darker, the borders had changed, and the surface felt different. I ignored it at first thinking it was pregnancy related (the melanin in your skin can change due to hormones causing freckles and moles to darken), but my gut told me to go get it looked at in case it was cancerous. I got a name of a local dermatologist and went in. He inspected it along with a number of other moles on my body and decided to "burn" it off and send it to pathology to be sure.
A week later, I got a phone call at 7:00am from the dermatologist himself telling me that it was in fact a malignant melanoma and that he wanted me to come in immediately to get it removed. Keep in mind this news came the exact same week that Eric failed the board exam again and then lost his job. I think I was in shock at first, but then it hit me on the way to the doctor and I just fell apart. "What else could go wrong in our lives?", I asked myself repeatedly on the drive. I tried hard not to think about it until I had spoken with the doctor and found out how deep the cancer was. But of course, you can't help but freak out a little! So, after the doctor removed it (he took out quite a bit of skin too), we spoke for awhile and he told me that it was only in the epidermis, but if I wanted to get additional tests once I had the baby just to be sure it hadn't spread into the dermis, or worse, the lymph nodes, that was an option.
When I got out of his office, I sat in my car for a long time trying to gather my thoughts. I was stunned, scared, crying, and praying to my Heavenly Father to give me comfort. Granted, I knew that I had spent years in the sun lifeguarding, teaching swim lessons, teaching skiing, sunbathing, and even though I was pretty good about always wearing sunscreen, it probably didn't matter. Many hours a day for half of my life spent in the sun added up to a high probabality of skin cancer. But still, you never think it could happen to you. This was a major wake-up call for me as you can imagine. My thoughts were running wild as I was driving home, probably too wild. "What if it's spread into my lymph nodes? The doc said there was probably a 20% it could've because of the size of the melanoma. Will I have to do chemo? What about my family?" Yeah, I know, I went way off the deep end, but you can't always help it at first. You always think of the worse. I came home, broke down again with Eric, and then we said a long prayer asking for the Lord's mercy and for peace in our hearts to know everything would be ok. Well, we got our prayers answered and I started to feel better about things. Eric was such a comfort to me too, which helped greatly. Somehow, things would work out, I would be ok, and I would be around for my husband and kids. I just knew it.
Well, I was right, after another two weeks, I went back into the dermatologist to get the stitches removed. Turns out, the remaining skin he had removed just to be sure didn't have any traces of cancer, and the melanoma was indeed just superficial. He told me I probably didn't need to have the further tests done, that I would be fine, but that he wanted to follow up with me every 6 months for the next couple of years. WHEW! Our prayers were answered and I could move on with life (just a little more careful)!
A week later, I got a phone call at 7:00am from the dermatologist himself telling me that it was in fact a malignant melanoma and that he wanted me to come in immediately to get it removed. Keep in mind this news came the exact same week that Eric failed the board exam again and then lost his job. I think I was in shock at first, but then it hit me on the way to the doctor and I just fell apart. "What else could go wrong in our lives?", I asked myself repeatedly on the drive. I tried hard not to think about it until I had spoken with the doctor and found out how deep the cancer was. But of course, you can't help but freak out a little! So, after the doctor removed it (he took out quite a bit of skin too), we spoke for awhile and he told me that it was only in the epidermis, but if I wanted to get additional tests once I had the baby just to be sure it hadn't spread into the dermis, or worse, the lymph nodes, that was an option.
When I got out of his office, I sat in my car for a long time trying to gather my thoughts. I was stunned, scared, crying, and praying to my Heavenly Father to give me comfort. Granted, I knew that I had spent years in the sun lifeguarding, teaching swim lessons, teaching skiing, sunbathing, and even though I was pretty good about always wearing sunscreen, it probably didn't matter. Many hours a day for half of my life spent in the sun added up to a high probabality of skin cancer. But still, you never think it could happen to you. This was a major wake-up call for me as you can imagine. My thoughts were running wild as I was driving home, probably too wild. "What if it's spread into my lymph nodes? The doc said there was probably a 20% it could've because of the size of the melanoma. Will I have to do chemo? What about my family?" Yeah, I know, I went way off the deep end, but you can't always help it at first. You always think of the worse. I came home, broke down again with Eric, and then we said a long prayer asking for the Lord's mercy and for peace in our hearts to know everything would be ok. Well, we got our prayers answered and I started to feel better about things. Eric was such a comfort to me too, which helped greatly. Somehow, things would work out, I would be ok, and I would be around for my husband and kids. I just knew it.
Well, I was right, after another two weeks, I went back into the dermatologist to get the stitches removed. Turns out, the remaining skin he had removed just to be sure didn't have any traces of cancer, and the melanoma was indeed just superficial. He told me I probably didn't need to have the further tests done, that I would be fine, but that he wanted to follow up with me every 6 months for the next couple of years. WHEW! Our prayers were answered and I could move on with life (just a little more careful)!
No comments:
Post a Comment