Susan’s (almost) skin cancer chronicle, part 3
When is a mole (not) a beauty mark?
August 2008: I have this mole, right above my right breast. I like it a lot: It’s sexy.
About six months ago it started getting darker. The edges blurred. It grew, slightly larger, slightly thicker. I knew it had to come off. But I really liked the mole. So I watched and waited.
Mole-roulette, I was playing with fire.
I walked into my doctor’s office. “This mole has to come off.” She glanced, nodded, then her eyes flew up to my face. She pushed back my hair, touched my left cheek, above the jaw. “This one, too,” she said. A few minutes later, I felt her cool hand, touching the back of my left leg, the meat of my calf. “And this.”
Lidocaine, bandages. This time a rash, a fierce itch on my chest, swelling. “It’s very deep,” the nurse said when I called, “Doctor had to dig deep to get the whole thing.”
Third time down this road, I’m waiting for a phone call that doesn’t come.
I wait, denial leaves me content. The itching stopped, the swelling eased. I don’t call – silence is good news.
The phone rings while I am on deadline. “We need to schedule surgery…”
There are only two details worth sharing:
1. I was ‘as close to’ melanoma as one could get…without actually being diagnosed. In other words, one screaming close call.
2. This time, no white sheet blocked my view. Instead, I kept my eyes closed the whole time – except for this one moment: I peeked, and saw the surgeon transporting a large blob of flesh, blood dripping, fat globules dangling, from my chest to a large vial.
The mole is gone. I have a jagged scar I’m told will fade in time. I’m trying to believe it’s sexy, but all my necklines are higher now.
I’m glad, grateful, that this cut – so deep, so wide, so long – was enough. The margins are clear. That’s what the lab report says, it gives no other explanation, no recommendations for self-care. But I don’t need them: I wear sunscreen. I invest in Coolibar clothing. I see my doctor annually. Between visits, I study my front. My husband’s got my back.
I don’t want to see another mole go bad. I don’t want another scraping, another surgery. I’m taking care, but at the same time there’s nothing more that I can do. The initial damage – years of unprotected sun worship – is done. What lies beneath each and every one of my moles is an active volcano: It can erupt at anytime.