[Defying Melanoma]

As previously mentioned, I was trying to get in to see my Dermatology team (team because I rarely see the same doctors twice, being a teaching hospital and all). Today was that appointment.

This one made me nervous.

The little thing on my lip started out like a pimple, progressed to more of a mole then, after it bled a number of times (no, I didn’t bug it, but it was on my lip, so I hit it a few times!!)

The resident looked at it with her fancy magnifying mirror and wasn’t concerned, but said she would defer to the doctor – a benefit of being a resident – which made me laugh.

The doctor pronounced it some variety of a granuloma. And I was happy because the words basal cell or melanoma or squamous didn’t come out of her mouth.

She did the rest of my check and pronounced me all good (minus that goofy thing on my lip), and instructed the resident to take that off and send it to the lab to verify what it is.

The resident was fantastic, had a soft touch and kept me comfortable. It took longer for her to make it numb that it did to remove it!

So, in a week she will call and let me know what it was. In the meantime, we are all pretty confident it’s not cancer.

I’m relieved.