It’s time for my every-six-month follow-up. As you can tell by the title of this post, it was a good visit for the first time in a long time. While I had some spots I was concerned about, I know that I’m paranoid about anything on my skin that is reddish and circular. Fortunately, most of those will be benign… Read more »
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… Read more »
Well, I had my every-6-months appointment with the dermatologist today. As you can guess from the title of this post, I had another piece of my skin cut off for biopsy. You see, I’ve had this…thing…on my back. It popped up a little less than a month ago and I first noticed it while struggling to put lotion on my back…. Read more »
A sobering report from the Cleveland Clinic has found that melanoma is five times more deadly for women who are pregnant or had given birth within the year. “We saw significant, worse prognoses and outcomes for women with a pregnancy-associated melanoma, compared to a control group of non-pregnant women,” stated primary author and plastic surgeon Brian Gastman. Obviously, the female human… Read more »
Today marks the year anniversary of my excision. It’s strange how time can fly. It seems like that day was long ago and yet, also feel like it was only yesterday. It’s been a year of worry, fear, sadness, and pain (literal and metaphorical); but it’s also been a year of acceptance, happiness, hope, and even joy. The excision removed… Read more »
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… Read more »
A few days ago, I celebrated a milestone of sorts. It’s been nine months since the excision. I’m in San Francisco for work and have been doing quite a bit of walking this past week. The scar still aches at times, and if I’m going uphill, it can be somewhat sharp. And when I get off the elliptical, it seems… Read more »
It is my sixth month anniversary of my excision…Six months since the diagnosis of melanoma became real. I was aware of the fact that there was an invader in my system; but that morning, riding in the car with my husband and my parents to the dermatologist’s office, the fact that I had skin cancer was very real in a… Read more »
So my every-3-months follow-up appointment was yesterday. After getting into the gown and then being poked and prodded by the doctor, she said, “Well, we’re still watching a few spots but nothing needs to be biopsied right now.” Wait, what? Really? No bullet holes? No anxious waiting for a week for a phone call? No wondering if the weird spot… Read more »
In 2 days, I have my second 3 month check-up with the dermatologist. It seems somewhat surreal that it’s been just about 6 months since my initial diagnosis. I can recall the entire telephone conversations with my doctor when she told me – it’s so fresh in my mind. But the intervening 180 days seem kind of like a blur… Read more »