This is a picture of the cancer I have on my chest. Right where v-necks apex. Where scoop necks scoop. Where the 18-inch strand of pearls I received for my birthday hang elegantly.

For two years I brushed it off as some wacky zit that just would not take no for an answer.  That didn’t respond to needle aspiration or topical steroid or antibiotic ointment.  I didn’t worry too much about it because the only size change ocurred with my menstrual cycle in the form of mild swelling and then it would subside.   It did occasionally bleed if snagged on something.  I saw a midwife with several years clinical experience in clinical female health care and she told me it was some funky skin thing related to hormones.  That satisfied me until my dad started getting all kinds of things biopsied and had skin squamous cell and basal cell skin cancer detected.   I finally decided it was bothering me enough to get in for a consultation with a dermatologist who is a friend of a friend.

Although I had a thousand questions about my skin, the focus for this specialty dermatologist (oxymoron?) was this particular growth and she wasn’t interested in my aging spots and the millia around my eyes.  I tried to talk her into the zit theory and she bet me a million dollars it wasn’t a zit.  It’s basal cell carcinoma, which if you have to get skin cancer it is the best kind to get.

I have a referral to a plastic surgeon for removal but since I was worried about the possibility there might be others that might need removal, I asked for another appointment.  I ended up with another mole tip getting sliced off one shoulder blade.  I was told it looked like the one on my chest, but I have never noticed it on account of I don’t have 180 degree flexibility in my neck.  A freckle type thing on the crest of my right hip gave her pause because it was so much darker than anything else on my body so she used a punch biopsy tool to dig the whole thing out and sent it for a evaluation.  That one has three interrupted sutures, while the other two just got bandages.  They both sting a little.

My right hip hurts, but it has been hurting for a long time.  Long before today when it was pointed out that I actually had a mole on my hip.  I never noticed it until she pointed it out and cut it out.  The rational mind has to remember this sore hip has just had a minor surgical procedure, has a history of being thrashed as a young gymnast, has been recently forced into unnatural yogaic contortions, and is now 40 years old.  The irrational mind has been watching too much Gray’s Anatomy where Izzy was just diagnosed with metastatic melanoma after a period of symptoms that included having sex with her deceased fiance who has been appearing to her as hallucinations.  And it just so happens I woke my husband up at 2:00 am last week for urgent sex.  This has never happened in 18 years.  Clearly this means I am going to die soon.