ABlazek

Celeste,

It hurts my heart to hear what you have been going through.  As usual you inspire everyone with your grace, humor, and courage.  I am just an occassional lurker here on MPIP, but you have touched my life  and my experience with melanoma as a blessing with your willingness to share information,encouragement, and a piece of your self with everyone here.  We are rooting for you and praying for you. I know you will win your way through this, and continue to inspire us all.  Italy is just postponed for a bit, but keep on looking forward to the fun you will have there!

Anne

Hooray! What incredible news — Congrats to an inspiring warrior! Thank you for sharing your battle and encouraging everyone here.

Anne

I don't have any insight, but just wanted to second that request for experience/info. It seems like a recurrence could present looking like a boil or pimple, or a mole, or nodule under the skin… or just about anything.  I, for one, have a bit of shadow that seems to be growing under my scar, and it has gone from sort of gray to having what looks like some brown pigment showing up… like the mole is re-growing. Weird thing is it seems to be straddling the scar, not on one side or the other.  Could be just a new freckle, but I am obsessed.  For those of us watching our scars, it would be great to hear what a recurrence may actually look like!

Prayers for you you all. Thank you for being willing to share your experiences.

Warm Regard,

Anne

 I think the doctors know when they best course of action is to biopsy (hence the "this has to come off"), but that doesn't necessarily mean that bad news is coming. It just means that they are doing their job and removing potential trouble makers. I hope that in your case you find out that your docs were just using just prudence.  2 -4 weeks is pretty average for results.  Mine took about three due to some internal review delays.  I hope your wait goes by quick and you get great news!

I love hearing such great news!!  So wonderful that you are back to normal activities and just living life.

Thank you for sharing your story 🙂

This is awesome news!  I am inspired by how you take the pain of treatment and choose to make your focus that you are bringing the battle to melanoma and kicking the crap out of it!  What a warrior!  Stay tough~ I know you are winning this war!

Hi Sarah,

I was recently where you are… newly diagnosed, and completely scared by everything I read about Melanoma.  I too am a red head who abused my skin when I was younger.  Now 44 with a melanoma diagnosis and with such regret!   I can tell you that the more you educate your self, the better you will feel. You will learn that you are very blessed to have caught this when in situ, and very blessed that it is now gone!  You can spend a lot of time and anxiety visiting all of the what-ifs, but you really should feel comforted to know 99% of the time for cases like you (and me at 1A) you will never see melanoma again.  Just be vigilant with your skin checks and take advantage of this reminder that life is very precious (and pray for the warriors here who are battling this monster)!   That said, with in situ and all melanoma the best practice is to remove a bit more skin and tissue around the original site to really make sure everything is cleaned up. I think that margin of safety is 0.5 cm for insitu. So, please do follow up with a good dermatologist who specializes in melanoma.

Take care,

Anne

Hi Tex,

First, I wanted to say a sincere thank you for taking the time to respond to my intro post. It meant a lot to me. I was at MDA today to see Dr Ross to have my stitches out. I thought of you while I was there, since I knew you had to be somewhere in that maze today fighting the good fight. I said a prayer for you while waiting my turn in the waiting room. I hope everything went well today!

Anne