Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! (boo!)

When I get the mail, I read who it’s addressed to and then who it’s from. Saturday there was a letter addressed to me and I groaned. Another rejection letter to rip up in front of my daughter who laughs hysterically every time. I can’t believe I missed out on my 15 minutes of fucking fame by two years.

Then I noticed the return address. Huh, that’s odd, I thought. I hadn’t applied for anything with my dermatology clinic…oh…OH! I knew with that letter that it was good news because bad news warrants a phone call. I ripped open the envelope to find a one page letter with four separate boxes of information. Two of the boxes were checked.

“No cancer was found…” !!! Yippee! I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I sobbed in relief.

Here are those moles:

Inner Arm

Inner Thigh (aka The One-Haired Bastard)

Chest

The other section marked wasn’t quite as good, but not altogether bad:

“…an atypical mole – not 100% normal…” Dysplastic Nevus.

Of course I had to look up dysplastic nevus and really found nothing useful. I don’t fit the profile for someone at risk for dysplastic nevus, nor for malignant melanoma, but here I am. I tan easily and I don’t have a body full of freckles and moles and there’s absolutely no family history. My dermatologist told me during my exam last week that it would be easy to find unusual moles because I didn’t hardly have any. Also, dysplastic nevus usually means moles that are large and of different shades and margins, but this one? This bad baby was just a tiny little dot on the top of my foot. Of the moles biopsied, I was the least suspicious of this one:

Left Foot

Since my diagnosis of MM six months ago, I’ve seen updates from a couple of my friends about getting their moles checked. Whether it’s due to my diagnosis or not, I’m always glad to see that they are being pro-active. Get checked, even if there hasn’t been any changes to moles you may have. The worse part is you may have to get naked (I got to keep my underwear and bra on) in front of a young, good-looking doctor. And since I know many of you have had more intimate “exchanges” with medical professionals, this kind of visit will feel like walking around your home.

I already have my next appointment scheduled. Another six months. I can’t look at it as another six months I’ll be cancer-free. Instead, I can only look at this past six as such. The next six months will be once again full of uncertainty and worry. I just hope that I’ll luck out this next time and not have to get nekkid again for a whole year.

Six Months Later and I’m Right Back Where I Started

Yesterday was my six month appointment with my dermatologist. It was scheduled as a mole check, not necessarily a follow up to my surgery on the malignant melanoma in October. The scar has improved in appearance, but it still has the ability to make my friends pull back in horror and grimace when I show them. The edges are still rather purplish-red prompting the doc to suggest laser work to break down those blood vessels and lighten the scar’s edges if things don’t improve on their own in another three months. Due to lack of insurance – or a job – I’ll be stuck with red, angry margins for a while.

He then did a quick mole-check, literally scanning me from head to toe. He asked if I had any moles that I was concerned about and I showed him three, two of which he agreed should be biopsied, while the third was a wild card and he would biopsy anyway and eliminate it from future worries altogether. A fourth mole, a freckle really, on the top of my foot he marked with his pen to be sliced.

The nurse numbed the four areas quickly and efficiently and then he removed each and dropped them in their respective vials to be sent off to the lab. I should have the results by the end of next week. Then again, maybe not.

I was glad to get rid of the mole on my inner thigh (the one that looks the most suspicious). That fucker was growing a singular hair of bristle brush quality. I remember after my pregnancy with Aitch, once I could finally see that part of me again, the hair had sprouted to mythical proportions. I’m fairly certain a little boy named Jack was eyeballing it as a worthy challenge.

And now I wait again and hope for good news. My doctor was especially pleased when I told him that my swimsuit this year is one that covers me neck to hip and shoulders to forearm. A rashguard designed specifically for women with a built-in shelf-bra. Now I can stop taking those contortionist lessons that I had scheduled to help me apply sunscreen to my back with my feet.

Things Just Got Interesting

Last night I looked over my calendar and was happy to see that over two weeks had passed since my appointment when the doc biopsied a mole on the back of my leg. Happy because I was told that if something showed up, they would call me within two weeks. If all was clear, they would send me a letter but that probably wouldn’t get to me for almost three weeks.

In fact, I was going to post on facebook that the doc had created a divot in my leg for nothing. I should add to that by explaining that while I thought they had just scraped off a bit of the mole, I discovered after it finally started to heal up that they carved that fucker like a jack-o-latern. Yes, there is a divot in my leg. One could place a golf ball on the back of my ankle and tee off without a problem.

As you’ve probably already figured by now, the letter that should say the scribed tissue was normal will not come. Instead I got a phone call just this morning that went like this:

*annoying cell phone ring because there isn’t a normal one on my phone*

“This is Yo-yo Mama.” I answer this way in case it’s my future employer. Normally I would answer, “Whaddup, Bitch?”

“Yo-yo, this is Nurse Stoic at Dermatology’s clinic. Dr. Drapenscrape would like to see you to discuss the results of your biopsy.”

“So. I take it, it’s not good news.”

“Dr. Drapenscrape will go over the details with you. Will Thursday morning work for you?”

A decade of employment with the healthcare system combined with four years of negative beta calls from an RE clinic is enough experience to know that when a nurse calls to ask you to come in to speak to a doctor, that the news is not good. So as far as how bad things are? Well, I’ll know more Thursday.

The mole itself appears to be out, but has very small margins. Commonly, more cutting will be necessary. I might even get myself some KY jelly that’s been nuked by Chernobyl to smear on my divot. Maybe I can act really pathetic and get a script for medicinal merijewanna?

I’m sure that everything will be fine. No one ever dies of skin cancer, right?*

*The first person who tells me otherwise will be haunted by my divoted leg that is also spouting some very unsexy stubble as it’s pretty difficult to shave one side of a leg divot’s scab without running the razor into the other side.