May was Skin Cancer Prevention month, but running a bit behind with many things these days, I am only managing to post this now. It’s a big, scary story that I’ll try and keep short and sweet, as public health messages should be. My mother had a stage 3 melanoma (the deadliest of all skin cancers) removed from her arm in the late ’90s. That, plus having grown up in the tropics, where I fried my fair skin in the sun year after year without any sun protection (rather, I slathered myself in baby oil to try and really get some color, which I always did: beet red), it eventually entered my consciousness that I could be at risk, as well.
When I was pregnant with my second child, at age 35, the mole on the left side of my face began to change. Before my eyes it was getting bigger and darker. I raced to the dermatologist who assured me that it was nothing, that these things happen in pregnancy, and that I should just treat it as the lovely beauty mark that it was. Flattery always works with me, so off I went, feeling like a pregnant beauty queen. A few months after my baby son was born, I went back to the dermatologist to speak to her about protecting my baby’s skin in the sun, and I mentionned that the beauty mark still seemed to be evolving. She brushed it off again and sent me on my way.
Ignore the dorky expression my husband is making. See the “beauty mark” on my cheek? That was cancer, growing a little bit deeper every day!
Not totally reassured, I decided to get another opinion. A week or so later I sprawled out under the lamp of a different dermatologist who also insisted the mole was nothing to be concerned about, but had I considered improving the hydration of my neckline? Oh my God, I thought, am I so old and saggy that the doctor feels that he actually needs to bring this up? I raced off with a prescription for some fancy anti-sag cream (that gave me so many pimples I didn’t end up using it anyway).
Fast forward a year. My baby son had just turned one, my first child seven, and I flew from France to the States to visit my family. I hadn’t seen my parents in over a year, and it took all of three seconds for my mother, a self professed medical doctor, to say, “OH MY GOD. What is that on your face? You need to see a dermatologist immediately.”
Within a matter of days I had received a “punch” biopsy which determined that my sexy “beauty mark” was in fact, a stage two melanoma. The dermatologist in Washington operated the next day to remove several inches of surrounding flesh (a procedure done to make sure that the cancerous cells have not spread further), and a week after that I was given the message that the margins were clear. The cancer had been contained.
There is far more to this story: My anger at the misdiagnoses (and attention to silly beauty questions over my real concerns). The incredible anxiety that maybe metastasis was already in process and had been missed even by the doctor in Washington. The “what ifs,” such as what if I had not gone to visit my parents when I did? What if the cancer had developed further and made me very sick? What if I died? What would happen to my small children? (In the middle of writing this a fight broke out with my now teenage daughter, and as unpleasant as it was, I am so grateful to be here, healthy as a horse, to fight it out with her!)
I am writing this today, as I said, because Skin Cancer Prevention month just passed, but also because I recently had the fortune of making contact with Hillary Fogelson, the author of Pale Girl Speaks – a memoir about dealing with melanoma. It’s a great read, and I will be posting an interview with Hillary here soon. In the meantime, just wanted to get the dialogue going.
Last but not least, some pictures, below of my scarred, yet salvaged face, a few weeks post surgery, and my scarred, but salvaged self, with my kiddos, in those same first weeks, post surgery.
I put this photo in sepia because up close the scar was so red and disturbing I couldn’t bear to post it without some camouflage. I know what I was thinking when this photo was snapped, because it’s what I thought over and over and over in the weeks after this crisis: “OH MY GOD, please let me live to see my kids grow up.”
Please note how small my kids are in these photos: One and seven! Today, I am delighted to say, they are nine and fifteen, and I am still here with them. Protect your skin, friends! Funny how we really, really, REALLY realize how much we love our lives – and the people in them – when we are suddenly informed that we may be at risk of leaving it all prematurely. More on this to follow!
