Disheveled_Zen
Member
This may be a little long, and is also my first thread on here, but I wanted to quickly tell the tale of how a choice probably just saved my life and might just save someone else.
Let me start by saying that I am someone who for the majority of my life was terrible at keeping up with anything health related. I always had some excuse whether it was I was too busy, or didn't have insurance, or whatever excuse I could come up with.
Fast forward to now and I have a decent job with health insurance, and I have been forcing myself to catch up on all the medical stuff I have neglected the past decade or so.
About 2 months ago I noticed a weird mole on my forearm and studied it as it progressively got darker and began raising off my skin. In a panic I made an appointment at a dermatologist (something I've never been to despite being very fair skinned). The problem was their closest appointment was over a month out, and being someone who does not handle not knowing things very well, I wanted answers sooner than that. I managed to get an appointment at another dermatologist later in the week and was able to get it checked. The DR said it was nothing, froze it, and said it would fall off on its own in a while and that if it didn't in three months, to give him a call.
After that appointment I still had the one at the other dermatologist and I toyed with canceling it because the issue I had originally called about had cleared up, and I didn't really want to pay 2x just to have nothing really happen in the second appointment. At the last second I decided to keep the appointment and just do the full body skin check I had scheduled.
Fast forward to the appointment, DR has me strip down to my boxers, checks me out from head to toe (little awkward but whatever) and says that I am in pretty good shape and my skin looks good...except for one mole on my bicep that caught her eye. She decided to biopsy it and I was on my way.
Well today she calls me directly, which is odd I think, and then I get the news. It's very early stage melanoma and I need to come in asap to have the area surgically removed. She assures me that its so early stage that my life should not be affected in any way, and that at most I will have a nice scar on my arm I can tell tales about. I'm scheduled to go in at 8:40 tomorrow morning to have a chunk of skin removed and then will need rigorous skin checks for the next few months and then eventually bi yearly skin checks until the day I die. I am of course nervous about the surgery, and it will be a while before I am "in the clear" of anything returning, but this news could of been far worse.
What's crazy is that had I not had the issue on my forearm, I would of never of bothered to book a dermatologist appointment to begin with, and would most likely have stage 4 cancer in a few years time if that.
TLDR: Get a full body skin check at least once a year, it might just save your life.
Let me start by saying that I am someone who for the majority of my life was terrible at keeping up with anything health related. I always had some excuse whether it was I was too busy, or didn't have insurance, or whatever excuse I could come up with.
Fast forward to now and I have a decent job with health insurance, and I have been forcing myself to catch up on all the medical stuff I have neglected the past decade or so.
About 2 months ago I noticed a weird mole on my forearm and studied it as it progressively got darker and began raising off my skin. In a panic I made an appointment at a dermatologist (something I've never been to despite being very fair skinned). The problem was their closest appointment was over a month out, and being someone who does not handle not knowing things very well, I wanted answers sooner than that. I managed to get an appointment at another dermatologist later in the week and was able to get it checked. The DR said it was nothing, froze it, and said it would fall off on its own in a while and that if it didn't in three months, to give him a call.
After that appointment I still had the one at the other dermatologist and I toyed with canceling it because the issue I had originally called about had cleared up, and I didn't really want to pay 2x just to have nothing really happen in the second appointment. At the last second I decided to keep the appointment and just do the full body skin check I had scheduled.
Fast forward to the appointment, DR has me strip down to my boxers, checks me out from head to toe (little awkward but whatever) and says that I am in pretty good shape and my skin looks good...except for one mole on my bicep that caught her eye. She decided to biopsy it and I was on my way.
Well today she calls me directly, which is odd I think, and then I get the news. It's very early stage melanoma and I need to come in asap to have the area surgically removed. She assures me that its so early stage that my life should not be affected in any way, and that at most I will have a nice scar on my arm I can tell tales about. I'm scheduled to go in at 8:40 tomorrow morning to have a chunk of skin removed and then will need rigorous skin checks for the next few months and then eventually bi yearly skin checks until the day I die. I am of course nervous about the surgery, and it will be a while before I am "in the clear" of anything returning, but this news could of been far worse.
What's crazy is that had I not had the issue on my forearm, I would of never of bothered to book a dermatologist appointment to begin with, and would most likely have stage 4 cancer in a few years time if that.
TLDR: Get a full body skin check at least once a year, it might just save your life.
