Day 105 - It Grows on You in These Foolish Things

Mentally prepping for today.

Maybe this is a little thing, but it’s not so little to me. I gotta get my head right about yet another spot found on my skin. The derm was able to squeeze me in today only because he knows I’m prone to cancer.

I found another spot on my right forearm in the shower about two weeks ago. And yes, I find spots just about every other week, but I’ve now gotten to the point where I can determine if they look suspicious or not…and this one looked suspiciously like that basal cell carcinoma that popped up on my shoulder (like the devil) a couple of years ago.

Skin cancers are supposed to be slow-growing, but these motherfuckers are like weeds on me. I think they love my fair, freckled skin and simply feed on it voraciously and grow ten times their size in no time at all. Mine’s already doubled in size since I found it two weeks ago. It’s already the size of a pencil eraser!

Funny, I had never had any kind of skin issues until after chemotherapy. I do believe that the combination of this aggressive medicine and my susceptible skin has become a breeding ground for cancer cells to do their dirty work.

The docs say that both basal and squamous cell carcinomas (and I’ve now had several occurrences of both), while they are a pain in the ass and need to be taken care of, are not as dangerous as the deadly melanoma, but honestly…a cancer is a cancer is a cancer and I don’t want ANY cancers living in, on, or around me!

So this morning I’ll do my regular morning routine and then take the dog to daycare and make my way downtown to my super friendly dermatologist who will take a biopsy of this growing lesion. I want to ask him to cut it out completely this morning. I wonder if he can. The last spot that looked like this required Mohs surgery, which is a little torturous. But even the squamous cell spot that the guy cut out of my leg last year using a supposedly less invasive (???) excision seemed aggressive and required a lot of prep and a good chunk of time and a fair amount of stitches. So, this will likely be step one in a two-phase process if it IS indeed a BCC (and I will be shocked if it’s not).

Bottom line, these skin cancers are causing me a little PTSD. Technically, I’m no longer “cancer free” when these guys are growing on me. I am taking care of myself, but man…aging can be TRAUMATIC!

xox,
GS