Thursday's Share..

I actually have 10 minutes before I need to get to work so I thought I'd share a little about when I visit the skin doctor (don't feel like spelling out the correct name).  When I go she checks every mole with a magnifying glass and scans actually fairly swiftly as I have lots of them. But when she spots any that are unusual in shape with any dark (dark brown to blackish) dot in them, she takes them off to be biopsied.  These are moles that I wouldn't think twice about being an issue.  I'm always thinking that anything that may be any form of skin cancer should be bigger (like pencil eraser size) and blotchy or obviously different to the untrained eye.  Nope not the case. 

I thought I'd give an example here for those who have never seen a skin doctor or wonder if they should visit one for a check of their skin and I mean all the skin including scalp (pulling the hair apart at various areas to make sure nothing suspicious there either).

She told me to keep an eye on this one that is on my forearm. Probably the only reason she didn't decide to take it was because there was not a dark brown/blackish spot on it. But see how it is almost a triangle shape?  That is an issue as well.  To me, looking at it, it just looks like two moles right next to each other. No big deal.  But since it is different and not just round like ones near by it, it may be pre-cancerous.  The red growth is ...I forget...she had a name for it, but it is typical and I've got lots of them too. 

And this one I'm to keep an eye on is not big. I'd say if you broke a toothpick in two. It is as big as the thickest broken off piece in width (looking down at the edge of it). 

Don't get me wrong, none of the things she removed was melanoma but they were abnormal enough (from biopsy results) that they could at some point turn into that.  And why gamble?  I was resistant the first time she wanted to remove the two she found last year, but then thought hey why play a wait and see game, because once it would be come full blown cancer, it is much worse to deal with!  So anyway, little sharing (or lesson) about moles.  Of course if they are growing rapidly, or are bleeding, those are other signs there is a problem. I've not had that though so mine were only spotted by the doctor during my check ups. That was why I didn't go back for a year since my basal cell removal as I thought I didn't have any other issues. I am glad she didn't find any on my back this time around. That is a little more uncomfortable sleeping when there are stitches on my back.  :-)

So fingers crossed that she won't have to do anything further with the one on my leg (which I happened to forget about...until this morning). I still had the band-aid on from Tuesday. Oops. .:)