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Married to GI Joe, and the Mother to GI Joe Jr (whom is currently addicted to the Wonderful World of Superheroes), I'm a WV Hillbilly plunked down in a subdivision. I have a backyard garden, crazy neighbors, and a goofy dog that we love on Tuesdays. We love to travel and explore new things, so feel free to browse our life. Sometimes it is exciting, most of the time it is just life. But we are having a good time at it.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Mystery Diagnosis...I'm convinced

I’m in my mid thirties, and extremely blonde naturally. And I used to tan in tanning beds...a LOT...and I was a kid prior to the days of sunscreen and rashguard UV shirts.

Sooooo…its high time to visit the dermatologist.

Considering I haven’t been to one since college, I guess now is the best time. I have to do my baseline mammogram next month, and I am sure something else needs checked too, but I digress. Its so much fun knocking on middle age and being female.

So I make the appointment back in June, and get a head to toe visit scheduled for the end of August…today actually.

I’m a little nervous. Had some strange moles removed in college…they were benign…just stupid looking moles. I have this dream of strolling in, being told I have great skin and there is nothing to be concerned with, and strolling out. Alas, I know this is a pipe dream.

I am covered in large freckely mela something or another spots. I have the potential to be a dermatologists dream when it comes to inspections.

So I chuck in there during my lunch. I have all of my paperwork in hand as I am supposed to. I don’t know why I find it so exciting to hear the receptionist/billing clerk praise me on my ability to complete everything and have it ready. It’s the anal rententive type A soul that I am.

I get called back. The nurse practioner takes a brief medical history, notes my concerns, and tells me to undress and points to the fashionable blue gown in the plastic bag. Oh goodie.

So I undress and wrap said blue gown around me and plop my chubby tail on the table…and proceed to wait.

And wait.

And stare at the big poster on the wall with pictures of different types of skin cancers.

Then I check out my own skin…

Then I look at the poster on the wall again…

Then I zero in on a little pink dot on my upper arm that has been aggravating the crap out of me for a few months. It looks crazily like the photo of basal cell skin cancer. Photo #2 from the right. Enlarged to show detail. Hmmmm…

So I hop down from the table, with the fashionable blue gown billowing behind me, and check out the picture closely.

Then stare at my arm again…then the poster…then my arm…then the poster…all the while wishing I had had enough gumption to attempt medical school because in the span of thirty seconds, I have convinced myself I have skin cancer. I roll up the sleeve on the gown and raise my arm up near the spot to compare the two.

I am still standing there when the doc comes in…and I whirl around and exclaim ‘You know…you all shouldn’t put these posters up in here for people to scare the holy heck out of themselves while they wait!’ She laughs, so I am not the first patient to tell her this. Dang it. Really...where is the poster of the cat hanging from the tree branch that says 'Hang in there!' or something uplifting like that. Nooooo...she has big huge posters of skin diseases for me to obsess about while I wait.

So she starts the inspection…top of my head, to the bottoms of my feet…literally. And the top of my head has a concern…raised chicken pox scar from when I was eight…according to her, we have to keep an eye on that. And the bottom of my feet have a concern…I have a funny mole there.

And I have a large mela something or another mole on my butt…thought you might want to know that.

And she made a comment on my tattoos. The nurse with her told me afterwards she liked them a lot and had seven of her own. That made me feel better for some stupid reason.

She found my pink spot on my upper arm non alarming, but froze it anyway. It’s a mela something or another that I didn’t catch. Apparently, no big deal. I’m still convinced I have some crazy form of some sort of rare skin disease and she missed it and I am going to be on Mystery Diagnosis.

Of course, yesterday, I had also convinced myself The Husband brought back bedbugs from his conference in Chicago. Nothing else could have bit me in my sleep. We have no mosquitos, spiders or anything like that in the heat of summer in central Virginia. Nah. So I proceeded to tear our bed apart last night, inspect it, vacuum it, wash everything on the super hot setting on my washer, and dried them all on high heat. I still laid very still last night and just WAITED. And WAITED. And warned The Husband 'if I get bit..it is ON' I didn't get bit. We don't have bedbugs...I'm a loon.

But anywhoooo….

But she didn’t’ like a mole on my stomach because it was half pink half brown…so off it came. Yup…in college I had an outpatient hospital procedure to remove three moles from my back. I fainted in recovery. Today she reached into her cabinet, pulled out the lidocaine shot , dosed me, scraped it off, and sent me on my merry way. Um ok. All the while just chatting away and using terminology that I wasn’t quite catching.

Told me to keep using my sunscreen, they’d have my pathology report back in two weeks, and she’d see me next year.

And now my stomach itches and my pink spot is a bright read frozen circle of skin.

I still want to Google pics of basal cell skin cancer to prove to myself that this is NOT what I have…

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't freak yourself out. And don't go to Dr. Google. He is the DEVIL!

Relax and what for the real diagnosis...

Seriously....Me. said...

The real diagnosis came on the spot on my stomach...
Atypical.
Not melanoma.
Not normal.
So back to have more skin cut off and have another lovely reaction to the bandaid sticky stuff.
But I will take 'atypical' over 'melanoma' any day.
Get your skin screening!

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