Today I had surgery for a Stage 0 Melanoma. It was discovered about a month ago when I went to my dermatologist for my annual skin screening. I was so lucky to have a Nurse Practitioner who was thorough and eagle eyed as she spotted a pinhead sized dot on my left buttock. She took a scraping, sent it out and sure enough, it came back as a Melanoma in Situ (along with all these other words that I'd never heard of and had to Google).
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The Nurse Practitioner called me into the office to go over my results rather than sharing the news over the phone and then referred me to a Surgeon/Oncologist in Naples. That began a month of appointments, discussions, pictures (!) and then today, surgery.
My surgeon was wonderful, the team at the surgery center were kind, caring and funny and what was a scary event turned into a kind of visit with friends. I won't get my results until I meet with the surgeon in two weeks so until then, I will research Melanoma and hope that it stayed in the margins and didn't stray.
I'm also using my job search blog as a place to tell you my story and to ask you to get your skin checked. I had a bad experience with a dermatologist in NJ about ten years ago and it left me not trusting them. I'm glad I changed my mind and have been consistently getting checked over the last few years. So please, get checked. I grew up at the beach and love to be outside. This melanoma doesn't seem to be caused by the sun, the doctor says it is most likely from my family history.
If I can make one person visit a dermatologist from this post, I'll be happy.
PS I learned to today that a melanoma, even a stage zero can quickly spread within six weeks. That's not very long.
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