It's fairly obvious that I'm at a higher risk than most for skin cancer based on my phenotype (red hair, pasty white skin). Since skin cancer is a cancer you can (hopefully) prevent or catch early I've been pretty good about have annual skin checks. 5 years ago, a derm PA took off one mole on my stomach (benign). I saw a derm MD two years later and nothing was found to be concerning. A year ago I saw another derm PA and she wanted to take one mole off of my arm. Instead of doing it at the time of my initial appointment, she had me schedule one for later in the month. I had a meeting come up at work that I could not change that conflicted with the follow up appointment. I called to cancel the appt 44 hours before my appointment time and the clinic charged me $70 as I hadn't given them enough notice. I thought that was a completely ridiculous policy and let them know that! After talking to the practice manager they waived my fee but warned me that they wouldn't wave a fee in the future. Very, very annoyed with that policy I didn't schedule a follow appointment. About 6 weeks ago I had an appointment was a derm PA my friend loves. Immediately upon meeting her I could tell she was kind, smart, and good at her job. She didn't think the mole on my arm needed to come off but found 3 concerning ones on my legs. She did shave biopsies of them all and they all showed moderate atypia. So, I had to go back and have a larger amount of skin excised. This went well but was a bigger procedure than I anticipated. She cut out the skin down to the subcutaneous level (I now know what my thigh fat looks like!). My moles are all pretty large so the patch of skin removed was diamond shaped probably 3 inches in length and width. That's a pretty big hole! I ended up with three 6 centimeter incisions on my legs plus one smaller one that she took off via punch biopsy (2 cm).
Here some photos if you are curious....
Pressure dressings -
3 on my left leg, 1 on my right
PRetty looking incision
Did you know that women are most likely to develop melanoma on their legs.
It most commonly found on men's trunks.
Have you been to a dermatologist lately?!
Posts
2 comments:
I had one taken off my stomach, actually! I was in for my normal physical and happened to be wearing lace undies so the doc could see the mole (obvs below the bikini line so always covered, but who knows). I am Irish-white in the winter and turn Italian-brown in the summer, so I don't think I'm at super high risk, but I was happy to have that removed rather than risk anything. I just had my internist take it off, but I don't think she did a very neat job, so in the future I will go to a dermatologist. There's one on the back of my shoulder that I want looked at.
YIKES!!!! Now I'm nervous for my annual check.
Post a Comment