It’s back-to-school time for a lot of families here in the United States and my Facebook feed is stuffed full of images of friends’ children all decked out for the first day of school. I have no children and generally scroll past these images thinking to myself “how the hell did my friends get so old that they could have kids in high school (or even university) already?”
So, in order not to feel left out of the photo-mania, I decided to post an image of my excision scar as it looks now at 20 months. If you’re following this blog, you’re probably either getting a diagnosis of melanoma (amelanotic or otherwise) or know someone who has. And honestly, it’s a little scary to think about someone slicing out a fairly large chunk of your skin. What’s it going to look like? How am I going to feel right after, a month after, a year after? You can read the archives to know how I dealt with those questions; but now, sitting just over 20 months after the excision, I can tell you that I’m doing really well. I still get paranoid about random bits of skin that look different, no lie. But I’ve also grown to appreciate life a lot more. I’ve gone after things that I want to do (travel and more live music being the main ones). And I’ve found peace in sharing my story with others.
I always make you sit through these philosophical ramblings before I show you what you really came here to see, don’t I?
Scar at 20 months
I think it looks really good. I mean, I’m ruddy (that’s a real word, I swear!) and so my skin is kinda reddish anyway. But the scar is definitely fading. Even the stitch marks on either side are much less noticeable than previous images I’ve posted. I have to say, most of the time I forget it’s there now. Only when I do some crazy amount of walking or if I’m sick do I ever feel anything different there. And now, it’s just an ache rather than sharp pains.
I’m really happy at how it’s healed and hopefully, it will continue to be almost an afterthought – yeah, I had some weird cancer and all I got was this lousy scar… LOL!
it really looks good. It would be much better if you had not needed that excision, but now that it is out of your system and the scar is really healing up nice, I am very happy for you. best 🙂
Thanks! Yeah, I guess if I had my way, I wouldn’t have had it at all. But for saying that it was such a big chunk of skin removed in such a bendy spot, I am actually pleased how good it looks now… Thank you!!! Hugs…