2014-11-13 fuck cancer, and this one in particular
A small diversion in the project blog...
Two years ago i went to my regular doctor to have a mole removed from my thigh. I went because my keys would bump it, and i bugged me, and i'd had a couple of other nuisance moles removed when i was younger and it was no big deal. This one became a big deal when he decided to do a biopsy instead of just taking it off, and it turned out to be melanoma.
It had been a flat reddish spot for years, then raised up over a few months, but i honestly would have ignored it if i wasn't constantly feeling it through my pants pocket. I've always had little skin tags or bumps that didn't mean anything, so this one didn't seem important either. Within the next couple of weeks after getting those lab results, i had a CAT scan (where i found out i'd broken my ankle in a summer volleyball bad landing), and a PET scan, and surgery to remove a 6" long football-shaped chunk of skin, plus a couple of lymph nodes. 2cm margins are a bitch.
That went well though, and once i healed up the prognosis was good, with no sign of spreading or other cancers. I went to my skin checks for the next year, then was laid off, and well, didn't go for about another year. Finally i went last month, and things looked good until the doc found a small spot on my calf (same leg) that didn't look right. Another biopsy, another melanoma, and another football-shaped piece of skin removed, thought a much smaller one this time. I won't be missing any more skin checks, that's for sure.
My grandfather had skin cancer, and my dad died of lung cancer, so i have enough reason to fly the "fuck cancer" flag, but now i have to be on high alert for myself as well. I'm lucky, really, having something that's highly treatable when i have had friends with breast cancer or brain tumors, so i have no complaints. Still, i say fuck cancer, and in particular fuck this cancer, which has been taken off my leg and placed into a little plastic jar, the better for the lab to test and for me to contemplate.