Yesterday was an MDA day.
I was only a year late for my annual mole inspection with the
Dermatologist at MD Anderson. It’s not that I
don’t like HER .. it’s just the humiliation of getting undressed and having all
your bits and pieces looked at thru a magnifying glass. Really?
You need that to be LARGER?
I was sure I had something newsworthy to share. I’ve always had a lot of moles, some of
which dried up and fell off with chemo.
Some of which are experiencing a bloom with spring time, it seems. I was SURE some of them needed to be whacked
off, if for no other reason than they are being obnoxious and loud ..
So I was less than pleased to hear her say, “Uhm, no, that’s
just aging .. “, “well, that’s just sun damage”, “no, that’s just a little
benign ___oma” … Everything I pointed
out as larger, growing, changing color .. UGLY .. she just passed over.
But THEN .. “what’s this little spot on your nose? How long have you had that?” And I said the magic words .. “it bleeds
when I wash my face”. Now, keep in mind,
that Tamoxifen (keeps me from getting breast cancer again, in theory) causes
acne. So I have aging, teen age
skin. Pimples. Nasty mothers .. which I use benzoyl peroxide on and I take Clindamycin for. So a little, tiny, mean, bleedy spot on my
nose was no cause for concern to me, but the doc said it warranted a biopsy.
Hm.
So .. she numbed my nose and took a sliver just to make the
day more interesting. And she put a a big, round bandaid on my nose. Lovely. I’m not worried at all.
The bandaid was way more frightening than what I found under it this
morning. (*Turns out the spot she removed was pre-cancerous, so I have to be more careful and be seen yearly now.)
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The thing about going back to MDA after spending so much of
my time there two years ago, is that it’s like graduating from school and then
going back to find the hallways are smaller and there are no familiar
faces. My oncologist has moved on to a
research position in Chicago. All the
close relationships I had two years ago have devolved. The people I saw at my worst are now
treating others at their worst.
I felt no sense of place at MDA yesterday.
And THAT was cool. I really am getting better.
No appointments until September and then in November it's time for my yearly scan festival. Whoopee!
