Wake up call

It's been a crazy couple of months. Well, crazier. The newest stress (beyond worrying about my livelihood while being used as a political pawn) is my diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma. Yeah-sobering. You get pretty humbled pretty quick when someone tells you you have cancer, even if it is a non-threatening looking little spot on your arm.


So, here it is-Squamous Cell Carcinoma (lovingly referred to in the literature as "SCC"). More specifically, it's a form of SCC called Bowen's Disease. I have had this spot for 6 or 7 years, so I am hoping it isn't too advanced. I guess I thought it was eczema. No excuse for a person with as much public health training as I have. Good thing I asked for a dermatology referral. My primary care doctor didn't think much of this thing a couple years ago when I had 5 moles removed. This time the specialist removed 2 precancerous lesions (actinic keratoses-one on my face and another next to the SCC lesion), two benign moles, and biopsied the SCC lesion. They are excising it next Monday, which is a few weeks since I got the diagnosis. Thursday I leave for New York City to spend a long weekend celebrating my 37th birthday with friends. Ironic. I pray daily for my father's disease genes (massive, instantaneous heart attack) and not my mothers' (my brother looked just like her and they both had internal-make-you-die cancer).

There's nothing like a cancer diagnosis (no matter what kind) to give you a sobering reality check about your life. Like, my little life is as fragile as a fall leaf. God doesn't HAVE to let me be here among the rest of you. He doesn't HAVE to let me watch my children grow up and become smart, kind, beautiful young women. This is all icing, and I should try to meditate on that every day.

And I am angry at myself. My stupid 16 year old self that use to try against hope to get a tan, laying out in the sun, burning after burning after burning my fragile, pale skin trying to be beautiful... and I am mad at my parents who should have been slathering me with sun block every weekend when we went to the beach. I can't even count the times I remember peeling blistered skin off my nose and cheeks and the part of my hair. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. I will be a better parent than they were. I will make sure my girls have hats and cover ups and high SPF sunblock. Especially Addie, who has beautiful, porcelain skin. Probably how mine would have looked if someone had been smart enough to protect it.

I am freaking out a little. I am trying to keep myself calm. I promise myself that even though it took me almost 37 years to get to a dermatologist to have a full body check of every blemish on my freckly, moley skin, I will be going twice a year from now on to get a scan. I am praying that this is the only diagnosis of cancer I ever get, and am grateful that it is NOT melanoma. I am putting out into the universe that this lesion is localized and has not metastasized anywhere and will be 100% removed after April 11, never to return.