Wanted to share with community what has been going on with me over the last couple of months. Hopefully someone here will take this information and can thank me 10 years down the road for sharing my story.
For those of you that don?t know me personally, I'm very fair; light eyes, light hair, pasty white skin (except with the help of the spray on tanner ;).
A couple of months a go, on the advice of my older sister, I went to the dermatologist to have the full "once over" skin check to have a baseline to monitor me as I get older, for moles or freckles that change.
During my first visit to the doctor, I immediately realized I was in trouble. They started marking up my body like a white board. The dermatologist said the normal procedure was to scrape and send for a biopsy, but there were a couple of freckles she wanted to come right out. I was a little taken back, but of course had the procedure and bit my nails during the two weeks it took to get the biopsy back. Two weeks to the day, I got the bad news that it was in fact, melanoma and they needed to go back in and "take out the neighborhood". Scary feeling, it was actually surreal.
Many stitches later and weeks of worry and dread, ( I did my best during this time not to Google melanoma, and freak myself out anymore-I knew I had one of the top Doc's in the country-and I knew everyone else in my life was burning up that search word), I got the all clear but one. Back in-more stitches, more tests, incredible stress and worry.
Yesterday was a flip out, because they called me back to see the Doctor right away, that afternoon. Let me tell you that was the longest two hours of my life, between that call and the visit. When we got there (my poor boyfriend was 10x as worried as I was) it was to find out that the Doc wanted to tell me in person, that they got it all. That I was going to be fine and that they didn't want to see my face for another six months.
I tell you guys this because the freckles they removed, were NOTHING that I had the slightest worry about. They looked like normal little tiny winy freckles-and they were deadly. I know a lot of you are in very sunny climates (I went to college in Buffalo-of all sun forsaken cities). Go get checked! Wear your sunblock! Tanning isn't worth dying for-especially when you can buy it at the Lancôme Counter!
I hope this gets one person to the Dermo-that happens-my work is done here.
For those of you that don?t know me personally, I'm very fair; light eyes, light hair, pasty white skin (except with the help of the spray on tanner ;).
A couple of months a go, on the advice of my older sister, I went to the dermatologist to have the full "once over" skin check to have a baseline to monitor me as I get older, for moles or freckles that change.
During my first visit to the doctor, I immediately realized I was in trouble. They started marking up my body like a white board. The dermatologist said the normal procedure was to scrape and send for a biopsy, but there were a couple of freckles she wanted to come right out. I was a little taken back, but of course had the procedure and bit my nails during the two weeks it took to get the biopsy back. Two weeks to the day, I got the bad news that it was in fact, melanoma and they needed to go back in and "take out the neighborhood". Scary feeling, it was actually surreal.
Many stitches later and weeks of worry and dread, ( I did my best during this time not to Google melanoma, and freak myself out anymore-I knew I had one of the top Doc's in the country-and I knew everyone else in my life was burning up that search word), I got the all clear but one. Back in-more stitches, more tests, incredible stress and worry.
Yesterday was a flip out, because they called me back to see the Doctor right away, that afternoon. Let me tell you that was the longest two hours of my life, between that call and the visit. When we got there (my poor boyfriend was 10x as worried as I was) it was to find out that the Doc wanted to tell me in person, that they got it all. That I was going to be fine and that they didn't want to see my face for another six months.
I tell you guys this because the freckles they removed, were NOTHING that I had the slightest worry about. They looked like normal little tiny winy freckles-and they were deadly. I know a lot of you are in very sunny climates (I went to college in Buffalo-of all sun forsaken cities). Go get checked! Wear your sunblock! Tanning isn't worth dying for-especially when you can buy it at the Lancôme Counter!
I hope this gets one person to the Dermo-that happens-my work is done here.
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