Questions about planned biopsy

I was diagnosed with stage I melanoma earlier this year, and I dealt with an absolutely terrifying and overwhelming amount of anxiety leading up to my biopsy. The worst part of it was the waiting, which for me was more than four months. That's not a typo — more than four months of waiting just for the biopsy.

I went to a walk-in clinic in mid January with a mole that I was certain was melanoma. It met every one of the ABCDE's, it was absolutely an ugly duckling, it didn't look anything like any pictures of basal or squamous cell carcinomas that I found online, and it looked exactly like some of the pictures of melanoma that I found online. The walk-in clinic booked an appointment for me with a dermatologist for the middle of May, four months later. That four months was the longest and most excruciating four months of my life.

Even when I finally saw the dermatologist in May, he told me he didn't think the spot was anything to worry about, but he would remove it anyway just to be sure, and wanted to book an appointment for me two months later. I was horrified. I couldn't bare to wait two more moths. I ended up pleading with him and he managed to fit me in two weeks later to remove the mole, but even that two week wait was awful.

So anyway, I can definitely relate to you when you say that the anxiety of waiting for the biopsy is overwhelming. I found that the uncertainty was what made the waiting almost unbearable, and the only thing that will take away the uncertainty is having the biopsy done and getting the results back. Until that happens, it's almost impossible not to run through all kinds of possibilites in your head.

One thing I did start to do though is read about Buddism and meditation, and that helped a bit, and continues to help me out when I feel crippling anxiety coming on. Buddism teaches a lot about living in the moment, and not letting yourself become overwhelmed by what may, or may not, happen in the future. I'm sure there are other methods of studying that concept that aren't related to Buddism, but Buddism has helped me.

So whenever I start to freak about about what may or may not happen in the future, I try to recognize that my thinking is heading in a direction where no good can come, and I try to relax, take some deep breaths, and remind myself that my thoughts are the only thing that I really have true control over, and running through countless horrible scenarios that haven't even happened, and may never happen, is not at all healthy.

I hear ya, i just did my CT guided lung biopsy the 26th(Oct) and the night before i told my wife im leaving town! I dont like scans PERIOD CT, PET,MRI or the ones at the store i suffer claustrophobia and need Adavans before hand or it will go way bad fast..Biopsys are stressful, my results should be in shortly so, i know your stress, however, my last scan a month ago revealed all kinds of tumors and theres a good chance its Melanoma (have had 6 surgeries prior) all stage 3b, im stressin BIG LEAGUE now that its in both lungs…keep busy!