Holey Moley!

Hey, all ~

Things have been normal at my end of the zoo (read: crazy). Now that I have all the information, I can share some of the stress that we've -- I've -- been going through for about a month now.

I noticed an odd thing at the beginning of February, on the back of my right knee. It felt like a scab, looked like a black pinhead. I thought it might be a baby tick, but in February? In Maryland, where it reached 4 degrees below zero just a couple of weeks before?

Nope, it was a mole. Knowing that we were moving, I decided to keep an eye on it and promptly forgot about it. That whole moving halfway across the country and not having a clue what was waiting, in house for us, job for either Z or me, or therapy-form for A. I know, excuses, excuses.

SO imagine my surprise when I noticed a little something at the beginning of May on the back of my right knee that had exploded in growth. And was like a poster for the ABCD's of melanoma, down to the black irregular color and borders. Since I tend to have "freak" as my primary reaction for serious issues, I promptly called a local dermatologist and set and appointment, and relaxed somewhat because I'd at least done something about it, as much as I could.

Then I have the appointment, the doc takes one look and gets a serious expression, and takes out the whole thing, right then and there. I mean, I have a huge chunk missing out of my right leg, directly over the tendon on my inner knee, and then had to drive home. She then tells me that the biopsy should take one to two weeks, and I need to keep the hole and the area around it moist so that when the results come back it will be easier to remove more tissue if they need to.

Needless to say, she wasn't spouting the rainbows and unicorns that I was looking for.

So I stewed over it for a day or two, cried a little bit, then had a remarkable peace about the whole thing as I waited for the results. God is good that way -- I realized that there wasn't a thing I could do about it, and He's in control, so I just -- didn't worry. Weird, right? Even my husband thought that was odd for me. Such a basic concept, yet how hard is it to truly let go of -- whatever the situation is? For me, the answer is generally "extremely". I try to puzzle out things that I can do to make things better, which is not always the best response and at times actually makes it worse. But I feel better for having tried, at least.

Results: not cancer, but not normal either. It still needed to come out. And I also learned that the doc could have sworn that it was of the "not friendly" variety, and she had planned to remove a further 1 to 2 cm chunk around the perimeter of the initial hole, and the same amount deeper than the existing chunk, and discuss further treatments if necessary. Thank goodness the biopsy came back the way it did, or I'd be facing skin grafts for the "extended excavation site". A pound of flesh, indeed. For a stupid black funny looking mole.

Moral of the story: get your butts in to see your doctor if you find something that looks funny, maybe your holey moley will be much smaller (and less painful) than mine. This stuff ain't something to mess around with, melanoma is one of the deadliest skin cancers because it has a tendency to metastasize (spread) to other areas of the body.