I had my nine month check up yesterday. As always, it’s a bit of nervous tension in the room, which I try my best to defuse by saying ridiculously inappropriate things. Making the doctor and her assistant laugh is my goal. I’m hoping that they will be extra vigilant in checking out things in order to keep me around to make them laugh more.
As usual, we chatted a bit about whether or not anything unusual had popped up in the past 3 months. I hadn’t noticed anything too unusual; but as always, she did a very thorough check of my skin. She pulled out a magnifying lens for a few items on my skin, which was something she hadn’t done before.
After she had looked at my arms, I asked her about a little flesh-colored bump in the middle of one of my “had from birth” marks. She pulled out her lens, studied it for a minute, and then asked me, “how long have you had this?” Actually I’ve had it since college, and it seems to have gotten slightly bigger, which is why I asked about it. She examined it again. “Since you’ve proven yourself capable of growing amelanotic melanoma, let’s take it off. It’s probably nothing, but just in case.” So, I have another bullet hole, but since it’s in the middle of a big old mole anyway, it’s not going to be very noticeable. I’m supposed to get the results in a week. Right now, I’m not too stressed about it because I have had some weird bumpy thing in that spot for nearly 20 years.
There are a few other spots that she’s keeping an eye on, but those haven’t seemed to have gotten any bigger than they were the last time. I’m hoping that in another three months, I’ll be able to graduate to the every-six-month appointment schedule. Of course, I’m supposed to call immediately if something else pops out like my pink melanoma did, no matter where I’m at in the time frame. But it sure would be nice to think about going to the dermatologist less frequently. Not that I think I’m immune to potentially more melanoma in my future. I’m not that oblivious. But knowing that I’ve made it through the one-year mark makes me feel hopeful that even if there are cancer cells in my body somewhere, I’m fighting off a recurrence. That I made it through an entire year taking care of myself well enough to not allow melanoma to regain a foothold. Even though I’ve experienced a lot of stress not related to my health, that the stress hasn’t caused my body to shut down and just allow invaders to take over. Maybe in my mind, it’s also a validation that despite everything else I’ve been through this year (things that I haven’t been able to share on this blog – mostly because I need to still process things and haven’t we covered that I don’t share things easily already 😉 that I’m capable of somehow dealing with so much more than I thought possible.
It’s nice to think so at least. Hopefully, when those results come back, it’ll be an “everything is ok” call and I can go through the end of the year without worrying too much about my skin…