Today is the first of May. For those of you who are not aware of the plethora of causes recognized in May, here is a small sampling. May is:
ALS Awareness Month, Arthritis Awareness Month, Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month, Celiac Awareness Month, Cystic Fibrosis Month, Lyme Disease Awareness month, National Mental Health Awareness Month, Correct Posture Month, and so on and so forth.
And while many of those causes have impacted someone in my life, May will alway be "Melanoma & Skin Cancer Awareness Month" to me. I spend this entire month harassing everyone around me. I send annoying emails, I post depressing stats on facebook. I basically make a gigantic nuisance of myself. Many of you have heard my story in bits and pieces, but very rarely do I really open up about how I was feeling through my experiences with melanoma. So, this will probably be long and emotional. You have been warned.
Back in 2008, I was about 7 or 8 months pregnant with my son. I went in to my OB for a routine appointment. We had a wonderful appointment and she mentioned, just in passing, that I might want to get that mole on my face checked out. She didn't like how it looked and I should probably do something about it.
**I am going to stop here for a minute to get on my PSA band wagon. This mole was NOT raised. It was NOT odd shaped. It was flat and perfectly circular. It was however a little larger and darker than the rest of my moles. Cancerous moles don't have a particular shape. What should worry you is if your mole is somehow different than all your other moles.**
I noted her advice in the back of my mind and then proceeded to go home and take care of a 17 month old, work full time, and birth a baby. Color me shocked that I didn't make it in to the dermatologist. And. while I would occasionally think about that mole, I doubt I ever would have made it in to see a doctor if it wasn't for trashy tv. You see, I don't watch too much television. But I am a devoted Grey's anatomy fan. And right about the time Gavin was 9 months old, they started the Izzy storyline. Those of you who watched will remember it vividly. Here is a character, inches a way from death, due to an unchecked melanoma. Suddenly, I was no longer sleeping at night. I just knew, deep down, that I had cancer. I was terrified.
When I went to that first appointment, they did the biopsy right there. I wasn't prepared for that. I just thought they would keep an eye on things for a while, but they took that sucker right out and scheduled a follow up appointment a week later. I went by myself and a doctor with little to no bedside manner told me that I had melanoma. He told me I was fortunate to have caught it in the earliest stage and asked me when would I like to schedule my surgery. My head was spinning. I was speechless. I left without asking a single question! I returned later that month to have the surgery on the surrounding area and left with a 2 1/2 inch incision across my cheek and swaddled in bandages.
This is where my story usually ends when I share with others. I had cancer, they removed cancer, I was fine. Which, essentially, IS the story. But so much more was going on inside. I was upset over the whole thing, but always felt as if I didn't have a right to be upset. After all, this melanoma had been caught in the earliest possible stage. I never felt sick, I never had to undergo treatment, worry about my life, face my death. Hell, three years later I barely have a scar. People asked me how I was and I laughed them off. I'm fine! I was never even sick! I was embarrassed to even use the word "cancer"... like I hadn't earned it or something. My husband said to me one night, "It isn't like you really had cancer.." and I had to agree. My immediate family has lost 2 people to cancer. Awful, horrible cancer.
And yet, while I laughed it off, something wasn't right inside. Because while I felt like I didn't belong being labeled a cancer "survivor", I did have cancer. And melanoma - well that is a particularly deadly form of cancer. Melanoma caught in the earliest stage, like mine, is exceptionally treatable. But once it moves out of those early stages, it is one of the deadliest. And if it hadn't of been for some awful trashy television show, I wouldn't have caught it in the early stages. I would have put it off. I would have been too busy. And I would have gotten very very sick. I had a 3 year old and a 1 year old... and I could have died. And the reality of that came crushing down on me in a way that I never expected. I stopped sleeping at night. I worried about every little health thing that came my way. I became a professional hypochondriac. And I did all of it in secret.
Time heals most wounds. And this wound was no different. As time and distance began to grow between me and my melanoma... I began to feel okay again. I was able to begin to forget my mortality and cover it in blissful naivete again. I began to feel silly and ridiculous for worrying about something that "wasn't even really cancer".
And then - 18 months later, they found a second melanoma. And all those wobbly walls I had just begun to put up came crashing down around me. This second melanoma was on my arm and atypical. It didn't demonstrate any of the normal characteristics except for a scab that lasted a little longer than normal. We almost didn't remove it.
Again, I told everyone not to worry. We caught this one in the same stage. It could be removed and forgotten. Except this time I couldn't forget. I became obssessed. I would lie awake at night and wonder. I would wonder how many years I had before we missed one. How many years would it be before the melanoma was on my back or shoulder and I wouldn't see any changes? How many years before I would have the melanoma that would kill me? Because I knew. I KNEW that this was how I would die. Maybe at 85, maybe at 40. But I knew that this was my death sentence. And I thought all of this in secret.
I kept it secret from those who had lost loved ones to cancer. I kept it secret from those who had suffered through cancer. I kept it secret from those who had other illnesses or challenges in their lives that needed amazing amounts of strength to make it through each day. Because, I "didn't really have cancer."
It has been 18 months since that second melanoma was removed. I have continued to recieve clean bills of health. I have a wonderful doctor who has a wonderful plan that will keep me healthy for many many years to come. Emotionally? Emotionally I have come a long way. The fact that I can put this out there for others to see... that alone is huge. I still feel a strange feeling of guilt for having trouble processing what happened to me. Guilt for experienceing mental anguish over something that is so much less than what others have suffered. Last year I wanted to buy a black ribbon tee-shirt, and couldn't bring myself to buy one that said melanoma survivor because I didn't feel I had earned it. And while I still don't feel ready for that step, I have realized some things in the last year.
I had cancer. Not "sort of" cancer, not "kind of" cancer, but REAL cancer. Having cancer caught in the earliest stage is incredibly fortunate, but does not make it fake cancer.
I was scared. I was young, overwhelmed, and scared. And while I was never in any actual danger of dying, that does not make the fact that I had one of the deadliest diseases in my body less scary.
I survived. While I still feel too much guilt to label myself a survivor, I can now say I survived. Because it was more than the cancer. It was the insomnia, the depression, the persistant visions of my children without their mother, the realization of my mortality, and all the other things that accompany that word. And I survived them all.
