I have one week left at work, and since it is also nearing the end of the year, I am trying to wrap up my visits to various doctors. On Thursday I went for my first visit to a dermatologist. Though I am covered in moles...I haven't ever made it a priority to get to the doc to get them checked out.
Many years ago my brother and I took my (then) little boy to see Victoria, BC. While there I treated myself to a massage. The therapist remarked that I had a cute little mole on the bottom of my foot, by my pinkie toe. Of course, I never knew it was there. And since I have so many moles, I forgot about it. Several years later, my PA saw it during a routine physical and wanted it checked out immediately. She said we don't get moles where there is no pigment in our skin, so anything on the soles and palms need to be checked.
Sheepish admission now...I didn't go.
Last year, a dear friend of mine was dying of breast cancer. And another dear friend lost her sight in one eye to cancer. Both friends made me promise to get in to the derm and get that mole checked out.
The dermatologist was a really nice, easy going gal. She began with an overall skin assessment. I was surprised at how quickly she looked me over. I had been figuring on being in there all afternoon, considering how moley I am. Throughout the initial exam she was keeping up a patter of easy conversation while quickly and efficiently working with the nurse to catalog what she was seeing.
Until we came to my "cute little mole" on my foot. She was experienced enough not to gasp and stare...however there was an immediate reaction and a very subtle shift in her communication with me. She told me that mole was now 7 mm, dark, and irregular and needed an immediate biopsy. Then she rushed to say that it was probably nothing, and just a precaution.
I pressed to ask what if...? Then she frankly said that cancers on the sole of the foot are very aggressive, tend to go straight to the brain, and that the odds are pretty poor. Apparently it is also how Bob Marley died. Oh great. I noticed she was avoiding making eye contact with me.
My anxiety shot through the roof, and I became one of those nervous patients who asks a million questions, fills the room with chatter, and just generally babbles away while they prepped me to go into the surgery to have 3 moles removed for biopsy. I will have the results in 7 days.
The waiting is
not going to be easy.
I am going to take that doc's word that it really is
probably nothing. Maybe this is yet another chance for me to have some experience in what the patient goes through that will round out my overall ability to care for people as a nurse some day.
