World Cancer Day

This World Cancer Day has felt especially heavy for me…

I found out yesterday afternoon that I have cancer. Yes, again.

I’ve spent most of my day trying to figure out what I wanted to say about today.

When it comes down to it, my two biggest pieces of advice would be this: advocate for yourself and get a skin check.

Advocate for Yourself

My last skin check was scheduled for early January with my regular dermatologist. Unfortunately, the day before my appointment, the nurse called to cancel because my doctor was out sick. They tried to offer me a telehealth appointment with another dermatologist as a solution.

Since March of last year, I’ve had two new melanomas, a severely atypical (precancerous) mole, two surgeries and 3 lymph nodes biopsied. At the time of the phone call with the nurse, I had another surgery coming up in a few weeks (on January 25). I explained this to her and let her know I had another mole on my back that also concerned me. My fear was that if the mole needed to be removed, that couldn’t be done during a telehealth appointment. I asked what days were available to reschedule instead and she found…none.

I pushed back. I told her this would only be my second skin check since my most recent melanoma and my last one had uncovered the severely atypical mole that was being surgically excised in a few weeks. Skipping my skin check was not an option. Full stop. We discussed it and decided that I would send a photo of the concerning mole in to my dermatologist and she scheduled extra time the day of my excision for the surgeon to do my full skin check.

After sending in the photo of the mole, my dermatologist (who I adore, by the way) agreed: she didn’t like how the mole looked either. I was hoping to get it removed right away and not have to wait for my excision date for the biopsy also. My fear was that if we didn’t biopsy it until the day of my excision, I’d end up in surgery again a few weeks later. And yes, that’s exactly where we are now…with a surgical excision scheduled for just sixteen days after the last one.

However, if I hadn’t advocated for myself, I might not have had a skin check that day at all. I don’t know if we would have caught it in a telehealth appointment and there’s no telling how deep or how far the melanoma might have spread before my next skin check on April 7.

Which brings me to my other point…

Get a Skin Check

MELANOMA IS THE DEADLIEST FORM OF SKIN CANCER.

It can not just be scraped off. It is not just skin cancer. And it can become life-threatening in as little as 3 weeks.

It’s also the most treatable form of skin cancer if caught early.

How do you catch it early? Skin checks.

Seven years ago, I had a mole on my right shoulder that just didn’t look quite right to me. I couldn’t remember when it had appeared or when I started noticing it but a feeling in my gut told me not to ignore it.

If I had ignored it, I might not be here today.

At the time of diagnosis, I was stage 1b but my oncology team felt it was growing quickly. It was deep enough into the layers of my skin that I was in surgery within 2 weeks and needed multiple lymph nodes removed from both my neck and under my arm to ensure it wasn’t a more advanced stage, spreading to other locations within my body.

Annual skin checks save lives.

If someone asked me today, how would I want them to honor World Cancer Day, it would be by calling their doctor and scheduling a skin check.