It's Not, Like, CANCER Cancer... Full Body Check and Results

Oh, the fun just never ends around here in 2023. So far we've had skinned knees, failed 15ks, cysts, appendicitis, and a myriad of plumbing & home problems. Join me now, as I tell you of more shit that has piled on to this horrible, not-so-good year...

As I mentioned in the cyst post, I had also made an appointment for a Full Body Check, since I'm a moley gal. I haven't had one done in quite a while, so it was way past time. I headed back to the same Dermatologist that I saw before. She asked if there were any that had been giving me issues, as well as asking if there were any that I wanted removed. I asked if she could remove one under my left breast (always irritated by my bra band), but told her to remove any others that looked like they should be removed. 

As I stood there in my tiny panties (ugh), she checked all my bits and circled a few that she wanted to take off - underboob, right arm, back left and upper back right. Within seconds, it seemed like, she pumped me full of (non-painful) Lidocaine and began slicing me up with a simple razor blade. I was bandaged up within a few minutes more, and told that I would hear back in a few days with my lab results. I went ahead and made another appointment for 2024 so that I don't let this task get away from me again (and I'm already making a mental note of what moles I want removed!)

TOP: Underboob, Right Arm, Both Back Locations
BOTTOM: Upper Back, Subsequent Stitches
Yep, those are my boobs and my rolls... congratulations to you for seeing 'em!

I got an email with my results a few days later, and 75% of it was good. 

• Underboob is an Intradermal Melanocytic Nevus. 
• Right Forearm is an Irritated Compound Nevus; benign mole associated with pigmented parakeratosis. 
• Back, Lower Left is a Lentiginous Compound Melanocytic Nevus; also associated with dermal nevus cells and pigmented parakeratosis.
• Back, Upper Right is an Atypical Nevus with Moderate Atypia; sample showed a proliferation of melanocytes arrayed singly and forming nests along the sides and bases of elongated ad focally anastomosing rete ridges with lamellar fibroplasia of the subjacent papillary dermis. Nests of similar-appearing melanocytes are also positioned in the superficial dermis. 

I know, I know, that's a whole lot of sciency talk. But basically, it boils down to three 'normal' moles and one precancerous mole. Because of that, I get to go back in a few weeks to have my upper back area excavated to have the dysplastic nevus area removed. 

So, for the past few days, I just can't get out of my own head. I know it's not a big deal... I don't have CANCER cancer, I just have a questionable mole. But when they start swinging around the word precancerous, all you hear is the cancer part... I feel this weird sense of dread, like this will be the 1 in a 100 chance that I do get the cancer, that it's worse than they thought. I keep sighing heavily, and my heart feels like it's dropping to my stomach every five minutes. I've dealt with precancerous moles before, way back when The Kiddo was a toddler, and I don't remember having these reactions back then. I'm probably just over-reacting, since it's just another fucking thing piled on top of all the other fucking things since March!! All I want to do is crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, snuggle up with Hubby and cry. And if I asked him to do that, he would gladly oblige me. But I don't want to put that stress on him, while he's still dealing with his own issues. So for now, I'll suck it up, get the extra part removed, and take it one day at a time until I get an all clear. 

June 14th, I went back in, they numbed me up again and took a good triangle-shaped part of skin out of my back. I had to have a stitch put in since the excision area was large, and in a place where the skin couldn't heal easily, which of course meant that I'd have to come back to have the stitches removed and deal with yet another scar on my torso! 

I got my results two days later, and thank God, they took enough that there is no residual dysplastic nevus, and all the margins are free of involvement. Big nerd speak for, it's all gone. 

I know you're bummed, but I don't really have any Before and After photos for you. But I wanted to share this one little tidbit of funniness... Like I said earlier, I had a precancerous mole removed a long time ago, and the scar is like a round dot. Very faint, hardly know it's there. This new scar is like a short line. Still noticeable, but fading. Being a dork, I looked up the Morse Code to see if a dot and a dash represented a letter, and if so, what letter. You know what it represents? 

An "A." My first name starts with A. The coincidence is very interesting. 

Morse Code for the letter "A"

So, if you're a moley person like me, or you have that one weird bump that you keep meaning to check out, please please please use this silly blog post as the wake-up call you need to go get checked out. It's probably nothing. If it's something, they'll slice it off. And if it's something something, better to catch it now than ten years from now when it's too late to fix.