My only message today is, when it comes to your health, don’t put things off. I didn’t have a close call (this time) but I was complimented for my hyper-vigilance.
Recently I noticed a few strange growths on my right leg, between the knee and ankle. They were in pairs. Two of them were flat and misshapen and had definitely grown in size in the past few months. The other two looked like little black dots and they were brand new. I really expected my family doctor to say they were nothing and to pat me on the head but he immediately scheduled an appointment to cut them out. And cut he did. And stitch. It wasn’t very bad actually. The needle to administer the freezing was the worst part.
He said I wouldn’t hear anything unless something was wrong. So when the office called and said he wanted to see me I figured there was a problem. It turned out that he just wanted me to fully understand what had been growing on me.
Growth number one, that flat and oddly-shaped one, was caused by sun exposure and left to grow to its full potential it would have become one of those raised, reddish spots that women love to rub skin-lightening cream on. It’s harmless. I still have its twin to watch develop into something ugly!
Growth number two was the one that had the potential to develop into something scary many years from now. It’s called something I can’t pronounce and it’s what eventually, likely becomes melanoma but I caught it so early it doesn’t even register on the pre-cancer scale. So the doctor wanted to make sure I got the message to stay on top of those little buggers and get them sliced out as soon as possible. He and I both looked for the second one and couldn’t find it. He thinks I was imagining it or maybe I had struck myself with a fine-pointed magic marker. On my calf. Maybe it wasn’t there. Perhaps I was just seeing spots.
I think Derek and I are going to institute a policy where we regularly inspect each other like monkeys in the wild but instead of picking off nits we’ll be looking for strange growths. (I haven’t informed him of this yet!) It would take years for one of the icky growths to become malignant and dangerous but why wait? Melanoma is the skin cancer that can kill you. I don’t want to be killed. So excuse me while I bend like a pretzel and check the rest of my skin because I haven’t used a magic marker in ages.