Here's the deal: in case you couldn't tell from my recent posts, my brain has been seriously torqued by the experience of waiting for the results of a skin biopsy and the resulting diagnosis of melanoma in situ (thank god it's "in situ"). It's brought me to earth with a thump and really cemented some core truths that, in the busyness of everyday life, I often lose track of.
The thing is, I knew going into the appointment with a new dermatologist that what I had on my wrist was a melanoma. I'm a textbook example of someone who should be on the lookout for such things, and throughout my life, ever since I was a small child, doctors have paid particular attention to my skin, my moles, any changes they saw. I'd been raised with a lot of awareness of melanoma, and when I saw the changing flat mark on my skin, I just knew.
Three years earlier I'd even had a dermatologist look at the mark, and he flatly told me there was no reason to worry about it. Wrong. I knew he was wrong, and I never went back to him. I kept my eye on it, and I'm glad I did.
But what I didn't do and what I should have done, as the mark continued to change, is to find another dermatologist immediately and get it checked. Instead? Sometime within the last year I picked at it. The mark scared me so much that I simply picked and picked at it until I'd more or less excised it myself. Gross, eh? I know. It scared me so much I wanted it gone. If thine right eye offend thee, pluck it out. I plucked out that mark.
But then? Through the pale scar that was left in its place, I began to see pigment again. And I know that regular, healthy marks on one's skin do not grow back. Malanoma does.
So finally, when an additional, different-looking mark on my other arm popped up suddenly as last semester came to an end (it has yet to be biopsied: it looks like either basal or squamous cell cancer), I swallowed my fear, researched a new dermatologist online, and made an appointment. I pointed to the two marks that made fear leap into my mouth, and he nodded. I was right to be concerned.
I was both relieved and petrified. Relieved because this was a doctor who was taking me and my concerns seriously. Petrified because I'd let a lot of time go by without addressing the first mark. Too much time? Long enough, I feared, for the mark I was scared of most to have spread. Melanoma in situ is 100% curable. Once it's spread? The odds really suck. A lot. My aunt died of melanoma, and it was a slow, painful death. Quite possibly I had fucked myself over.
Even now, with the diagnosis in, I'm concerned. Perhaps my picking at the original mark will have compromised the accuracy of the biopsy, the extent to which it was able to guage depth. That's a conversation I'll have to have with the doctor this coming Thursday when I have surgery to remove it, and he may or may not decide that it'd be a good idea to do further testing.
The moral of this part of the story is, if you see a problem, address it sooner rather than later.
The second part of the story has to do with my take-away from this experience so far, which has felt profound. As fear gripped my heart after the biopsy and the waiting began, I had to talk myself through the importance of taking things moment by moment. All the worry in the world was not going to change the outcome, positively or negatively; it would only rob me of the present, which is the only thing I could be certain of having. Regrets about past choices (to pick at my skin, to avoid finding another dermatologist sooner) would alter nothing. Fear about an unknown future would not improve whatever it turned out to be. All I had was now.
As someone who has lived much of her life retrospectively as well as in anticipation of things to come, this realization -- a commonplace one, I realize -- was a real zen challenge for me. Time and again throughout the past week and a half as I went through a litany of would-have-could-have-should have thoughts or started to shiver at what-might-bes, I would gently but firmly bring my thoughts back to the present, to the now. This is what you have now. Be grateful for the now.
And so that's one of my take-aways from this past week and a half. Of course I'm grateful for what turns out to be, at least for now, melanoma that has not spread. I mean, I'd rather it not be melanoma at all, but aside from that, this is a best-case scenario. We'll see what happens with the second mark; again, it looks like one of the less harmful kind of skin cancers that aren't great but that don't strike terror into one's heart.
But I was also practicing gratitude in the event that a less optimistic diagnosis came back because, frankly, given the amount of time that had gone by since my first noticing the mark and now, I not only suspected melanoma, I figured it would have spread. And I thought, "Okay, how can I connect with a sense of gratitude if that's the case?"
So I began keeping a mental list: I was grateful for the online resources and support groups for melanoma I was able to discover and bookmark for future reference. I was grateful for my own research skills. I was grateful for the personality traits that I have that mean that, once I've decided to seek out information and empower myself, I can and do. I was grateful for the time during which I felt well. I was grateful for now.
Which is why, after some thought, I ordered myself a Cynthia H. bracelet yesterday with the message LIVE IN THE MOMENT inscribed on it. I've worn one for several years now that's old and weathered that says MAKE A DIFFERENCE, and I do feel as if I've internalized that message and managed to work it into my daily life (though of course I can always do better). But now it's time to take on another challenge, one that may be more difficult for me, prone as I am to regret and worry.
My desire to practice this challenge has underscored my decision to return to Weight Watchers, to make the most of what options and choices I have power over now, and to maximize the health I do have as best I can (given my essentially slothful nature, that is!). I had a very effective form of weight loss surgery six years ago, and it's time to take better care of that gift. It's time to lose the excess weight that I've let creep on in the past couple of years.
It's been a mind-bending past week and a half, but I'm determined to see the good in it. One benefit? My return to Weight Watchers last week resulted in a 4.6 pound loss this week. Water weight and all that, but I'll take it as a good sign.
The past is gone. The future isn't guaranteed. Live gratefully in the moment.
