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Austin Babies
well, crap (***rssn***)
I pointed out a relatively new, odd-looking spot on my chest to my dermatologist during my annual skin check (am fair skinned with freckles/moles & have family history of skin cancer) & just found out it's basal cell carcinoma. And while I know it's fairly common & it has a very high treatment success rate, it is not fun to hear 'carcinoma.' I have a consult set up with derm surgeon next week. Blah.
Rssn, am I making this up or do I remember you had something similar?? Any advice? Words of wisdom? Anti-freak-out dust?
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Re: well, crap (***rssn***)
Boooo. I had a melanoma, but all of the -omas come with a heavy dose of freak-the-eff-out. No one ever expects to hear the word cancer. I had good days and bad days, days where I felt like I was lucky that I had a cancer I could see and physically cut out of me, and days where I felt like every single one of my bagillion moles/freckles was going to kill me.
We caught mine really early (stage 1). We opted to do the lymph node testing as well to make sure it hadn't spread, just for peace of mind. So I have a large scar (maybe 3-4 inches?) under my right breast where the main spot got removed with all of the surrounding tissue, and a tiny scar in my right armpit where the lymph nodes for that area drained to. I was going to have a plastic surgeon do the stitch up, but he was running late or some crap like that, so rather than keep me under general for an extra hour, the surgeon just did it himself. It's not really an area that anyone will ever see, so I didn't really mind the less-than-perfect scar, but if it were a highly visible area, I would want the plastic surgeon doing it.
Gotta run now, but if you have any other questions, or just want to freak the eff out to someone who can lend an empathetic ear, lemme know.
Sorry you're having to face this.
ETA: the melanoma was a for-real, general anesthesia surgery. They cut the spot out to test it, and then had to go back in to take a large margin of skin around the spot to make sure they got all the cancer cells. Since then I've had 23 other spots removed at my derm's office to be tested. Those just involve a local shot, a scraping, and a band-aide. One of those came back as pre-cancerous, so I had to go back (just to derm's office) and have him do a margin-removal there that involved more skin taken and then a few stitches.
DH's parents have both had carcinomas removed. FIL has had 3 removed. It really isn't a big deal as far as he is concerned. He has to go to the dermatologist regularly and get checked. His first one was found over 15 years ago.
My great-grandfather had them for over 50 years and simply had to have them removed when they popped up.
Loss at 15wks - Dec 2010 and 5.5wks - Sept 2011
My little ballerina - thanks Life in Motion Photography!