Well, I had my appointment with the dermatologist yesterday and as you may be able to guess from the title of this post, I didn’t get to walk out of there without more bits of my skin going off to pathology. When I got into the exam room, the assistant asked me if there were any spots of interest they… Read more »
So, I have my every-6-months follow-up appointment with the dermatologist this week. I already wrote about how stressed I am about this one, mostly because I am paranoid. I have no reason to be, but sometimes my amygdala likes to hijack the rational part of my brain. I’m also counting down to my upcoming birthday. Unlike most people over the… Read more »
You may have heard of radon. It’s a colorless, tasteless, odorless gas – meaning if it’s around you, you really have no way of knowing it’s there without a detector. Why do you need to be concerned about it? Well, for one thing – it’s radioactive. It’s on par with plutonium in that it releases alpha particles. (I know way… Read more »
A recent study shows that the standard procedure of removing all of the lymph nodes located near a tumor actually doesn’t help melanoma patients live longer. Ordinarily, if a patient presents with melanoma in a lymph node, some doctors would opt for a procedure called completion lymph node dissection, which basically means all of the lymph nodes near the affected… Read more »
I live in a condo in downtown Austin, which most of the time is awesome. The view is amazing; I’m close to a bunch of restaurants and bars; I can walk to Antone’s – a really cool intimate blues club – to see amazing and under-appreciated musicians perform. The building I live in is undergoing maintenance and yesterday, that caused… Read more »
So, I’ve got another skin check coming up. This one will mark the two and a half years since my excision. For whatever reason, I’m actually worried about this one. On one hand, a “nothing to worry about” result will give me more peace of mind, I think. I’m halfway through to the five-year mark and that’s a pretty big… Read more »
I’m in San Francisco all this week for work. Yes, I realize how fortunate I am to be able to come here as often as I do and have someone else pay for it. Even when work is crazy, I remind myself how cool it is that I get to regularly travel here and suck it up when I want… Read more »
Hey y’all, I updated the appearance of the blog. If you like it, great. If you hate it, let me know why. I hadn’t made any changes to the appearance of the blog since I started this thing. It’s probably a criminal offense, particularly seeing as I work in marketing and I do creative stuff all day… (I gave at… Read more »
So I received an email from a reader who basically said, “It’s great that you had a fantastic trip and all that; but we haven’t seen how your scar is progressing in a long time”. I know you guys love the scar photos so… To the day, it’s been two and a half years since the excision. I’ve shown some… Read more »
So, there’s got to be readers of this blog that cringe when I start talking about travel. If you’re one of those people who think to yourself “Dear God woman, just talk about cancer, and scars, and maybe some science every once in awhile”, feel free to skip this post. The rest of you, you with me still? Good… I… Read more »