National Skin Cancer Awareness Month: My Story
May is National Skin Cancer Awareness Month, and ironically, it was a year ago to this month that I walked into a dermatologist's office, and walked out with a hole in my leg. Now I have a skin graft on my lower leg and I'm here to tell my story to help raise awareness to this serious health problem.
For as long as I could remember, I had a mole on my inner lower leg. I never thought much about it because it was always there, so I didn't think there was anything to worry about. Yes, it was rather dark and perhaps it got bigger over time, but I was also growing and getting taller, so I just thought it was normal. Apparently I was wrong.
For whatever reason, my face was breaking out really badly at the end of spring semester last year, so I decided to go to the dermatologist for a consultation. However, I did not anticipate that I would walk out worrying about my leg instead of my face. I was wearing shorts during my appointment, and as soon as the doctor walked in to ask about why I was there, the first thing she noticed was my leg. She completely forgot about my face (and may I add she never quite remembered it) and suddenly it seemed like she was out to terrify me.
I feel like the most unprofessional thing a doctor could say to a new patient is, "Wow that looks concerning. I had a patient who had stage 4 melanoma and this looks just like it. She had about four months to live and barely made it," yet this is exactly what this woman said to me. I tried to explain to her that I had always had it, but she responded by saying, "Well the other patient said the same thing. We are going to have to get this tested." She left the room to get a technician to remove it for some tests, and I could barely keep it together. The technician came in with some delightful needles and scalpels and, as someone who hates doctor's offices, my heart was beating out of my chest. She soon numbed my leg and for the longest two minutes of my life, cut out the mole, and got it ready to be shipped off for testing.
I waited for just about two weeks and when I did, things didn't get any less stressful. I get a phone call from this woman asking me to come in as soon as possible, which of course didn't make me feel any better. I went back into the office two days later only to wait in the waiting room for an hour and to be in the exam room for five. The waiting made me more anxious than anything to be honest. In her office, she walked in staring at her clipboard in silence for a few moments without saying a word to me - I know, what a nice lady -until she finally acknowledged my existence. She told me that the results came back and showed irregular cells and that I would need to go to a plastic surgeon to get the rest taken care of because of the location of the nice new hole in my leg.
Upon going to my new plastic surgeon, I thought it would be a simple procedure in which he would just stitch me up and I would be good, but I was wrong... again. What I thought was a tiny mole was apparently a large one that would require more intricate work. My surgeon, who I loved by the way, looked at my leg and started to list off all of the steps that I was going to have to take in order to be back to normal. I could not believe what that dermatologist had gotten me into. My next appointment with my plastic surgeon involved some even more delightful scalpels and needles (what fun!). I remember Dr. Chin putting a surgical dressing around the spot on my leg and breaking out the world's largest needle and asking me if I was ready. After about ten minutes of trying to avert my eyes from the bloody surgical mess going on in my leg, I was left with a nice, deep hole in my leg. Apparently he needed to make sure all of the irregular cells were removed before we could go forward. My surgeon wrapped my leg up and started to discuss the details of my upcoming skin graft surgery. A skin graft? For a tiny little mole that I was born with? I was stunned.
I had to limp around for a few weeks with this hole in my leg before I could have my surgery. Apparently the flesh needed to heal more in order to improve the chances of my skin graft taking. The day finally came when I was to have my surgery and I was nervous because it was my first ever time going under anesthesia. A few minutes before I was set to go in, Dr. Chin came in to mark up my leg to designate wear the skin graft would come from on my upper hip. When he was looking at my leg, he said he wished that my leg had healed more and he asked if I wanted to push the surgery back because I would only have an 80% chance of my graft healing without a scar (looking back, I should have held off), but I wanted to get it over with. I woke up with a bloody pouch on my hip from where the graft was taken from, and a hefty dressing stitched to my lower leg over the graft.
I'm not going to lie, walking hurt and it hurt even more living on the third floor of my house with three dogs jumping all over me. I limped around for two weeks with a bleeding hip and a throbbing leg. After that, I had appointments about once every week to get more and more of my dressing taken off until finally it was done. I was left with a round mark on my leg, which, as I alluded to earlier, is still very much noticeable on my leg a year later.
My graft has certainly faded and shrunk over the course of the past year, but I still see every day. The spot on my hip where the graft was taken is also still there but is much smaller and lighter than it was a year ago. The whole experience took up my whole summer, but after two months of limping, I was glad it was over. When I look back over the experience, I find it to be a rather important life lesson. I always make sure I have sunscreen on every time I go outside, and I try to cover up as much as possible. If something so small could require so much work and time to take care of, I can't even imagine how things would have went down had the mole been any larger.
I encourage everyone to get checked to make sure their skin is happy and healthy. If I had waited any longer, who knows what may have to my leg if the mole had gotten larger or spread. Skin cancer can happen to anyone, and it is certainly not a joke.