For Father’s Day I got a gift I didn’t want: Melanoma

If there were a medical condition return window I’d run there now and return this Melanoma.  The first time you hear Melanoma it sounds not too unpleasant.  I like melons and “oma” sounds like ‘the land of’, why I’ll take a trip to Melanoma thank you very much.  Alas, in reality Melanoma is skin cancer, in my case brought on by a good mole gone bad.

The Doctor

Thankfully my wife (she loves it when I start a sentence like that) strongly advised (see commanded) me to visit the dermatologist.  As soon as the doctor saw the mole her tone changed.  It wasn’t a wholly crap get you to the emergency room tone, but it was a-oh boy-let’s cut the thing off, biopsy it and see what the deal is.

I also knew there was trouble when she said that the results would be back in a couple days.  Then a couple minutes later she said that we’d get the results back the next day.  When a doctor speeds things up that fast they either want to get paid quicker or there is an issue at body central.

The Call

“I told you we’d get the results back quickly”, the doctor said, almost 24 hours to the minute when I left her office.  “Unfortunately it is cancerous.”

Yeah, but it just cancerous.  It’s not really cancer, I rationalized in my head.  My internal logic ran through things that had elements of danger, but weren’t really dangerous or things that had beauty, but weren’t really beautiful.

In the end I realized that no matter what The Three Amigos taught me, the driving force of the sentence is not the suffix.

C is for cancer

In the pantheon of cancer, Melanoma is less common than other forms.  If forms of cancer were music at a disco Melanoma would be Milli Vanilli* and the other forms would be Daft Punk or Macklemore & Ryan.

Unfortunately, this disco has 80’s night at least twice a week and today’s hipsters just love dread locked faux pop stars.  What Melanoma may lack in total numbers it makes up for in veracity and number of fatalities.  The good news is that we caught it early and treatment (if any) is supposedly simply and very successful.  I will need to see the dermatologist once every 3 months-thankfully she’s located right beside a Taco Bell.

The wonky cancer bit

For the melanomaphiles out there, I’m a 1B, with a thickness of 1.32 MM, mitosis is at 1 MM 2.  I feel like I’m giving measurements for the Melanoma Pageant when I write those down.  Again, the good news is that Melanoma numbers are like a golf game, low numbers are good.

Sentinel lymph nodes

Since the mole was cancerous, I’ll be going to the hospital to have some dye injected into the area that once hosted the mole.  This dye will go through my body and see if there are any areas traces of Milli Vanilli*.

If there are traces they’ll stop at areas called Sentinel Lymph Nodes.  I think of these as a truck stop for anything and everything that races through the body.  If there are traces at the nodes then they’ll go to the first set that there are no traces and work backwards from there.

Anyone who has ever worked on outside lighting can relate to this.  If a light is not working you know that it’s somewhere in the wire.  You have to check each segment between lights in order to find the wire that has been cut, nicked or eaten by some pesky critter.  Once you find the short, just splice it together and you’ll be seeing at night no worries.

The good thing about Sentinel Lymph Nodes (aside from telling me about the stopping of Milli Vanilli)  is that it reminds me of this classic song and the Minimum Carnage story from Spider-Man.  Unfortunately it also reminds me of the horrible movie, The Sentinel, which you should never, ever see.

Unwanted Dinner Guest

For the record, I don’t smoke, limit my time outside, wear hats and always wear sunscreen.  This little Melanoma is akin to the bad neighbor you don’t deserve who may, or may not be trying to move the property line closer-and closer to you.  How this little mole went bad is a mystery, but we’ll update accordingly.

 

*Henceforth, Cancer shall be called Milli Vanilla.  Much like the music it’s named after, I hope that we don’t hear, type or say it too much.