I was having lunch at the Iron Hill Brewery with a friend when my phone rang. The caller ID said that it was “home” calling.
“Hi Honey.”
Silence.
“Hello?”
There was a slight catching of the breath on the other end of the line.
“Honey?”
“The doctor called… It’s cancer”
“huh?”
“Skin cancer.”
and then the world shattered around me.
For the next few weeks we learned about melanoma. We learned that the family doctor that had removed the questionable mole off of the back of my wifes arm didn’t get enough. We found out that they don’t take any chances. We learned how to live without sleep and how to cry ourselves to sleep at night. We learned that there were a lot of things that we didn’t get to do yet and may never get to do. Quietly I tried to imagine explaining my wifes death to a 2 and 6 year old.
The plastic surgeon injected a small bit of radioactive material into my wifes arm at the place where the mole used to be. In an XRay this “lit up” the sentinal lymph node, which was removed for testing. Then they removed 2 inches in all directions from the spot. Up, down, front, back, and into the arm. The result was a “shark bite” that she lived with for 2 years.
The biopsy on the lymph node takes a LLLLOOOONNNNNGGGG time. There is no wait so long as the wait to see if your wife’s cancer has spread to the rest of her body. All the while, those little buggers could be multiplying, infesting organs, beginning the process of eating the body from the inside. It was so very long.
She came back clean. The sentinal node wasn’t effected. But they knew something that they didn’t tell us. They weren’t sure. Two years later, we returned to the plastic surgeon and he sheepishly told us the truth. We were getting a consultation on reconstructive surgery on her arm. The doctor told us that they don’t patch it all up right away because sometimes they have to go back in.
Skin cancer isn’t just something that old people get removed from their face or something that you get after being a sun worshipper for a decade. My wife can’t remember many sunburns. It is dangerous as hell.
And every day I live in fear that it could return.
Please come to the Miles for Melanoma Charity Event this Saturday. We can help find a cure for this killer.