Skin Biopsy and Fight With Dad

Sounds very toxic, you need to set up boundaries and not let him hurt you. I had to do it with my narcissistic mother. She caused me so much anxiety it was horrible.

Thanks, SC and Deb.

I remain in a good mental place about it despite the anger and obvious sadness. I'll let you all know what the counselor says

Good luck mama, my Dad was the same, died drunk with a ruptured ulcer. Peace

Larry ***

I saw a counselor last night and it was nice to get a professional's view of everything. Still feeling really sad and down about this whole thing with my dad. Trying to stay as mentally healthy as possible throughout this whole process.

Thank you for all of your advice, help, and support

Dermatologist called this morning with the results... Finally. I was sort of confused.

She said the pathology report was fine but want me to go back to have a check in, in 2 months for regrowth. Not sure why a benign lesion would regrow? They want to see me every 3 months for a year after that.

I have a history of melanoma within family. My grandma on my dads side actually succumbed to it.

Just sort of confused and of course anxious now

Blu's
I have to do the same thing. My mole/irregular freckle or whatever the heck it is -- is not a problem right now. There is no indication of cancer (I also have history of both basal cell & melanoma in my family) but my dermatologist said I need to be very conscientious about always keeping sunscreen on it whenever I leave the house. She said if I don't that it could turn into something cancerous & the best way to check for that is by measuring, documenting & sometimes even photographing it so that if it starts to change in any way, they can quickly remove it. I have to go in every 6 months.

My mom was supposed to do that for one of her mole/freckles, and at first she was all panicky that it was definitely cancer so she went all the time. Then, she assumed it was nothing & skipped visits for almost 3 years. By that point, it had turned to Stage 1 melanoma. She had it surgically excised & has been cancer-free for 8 years now (yay, Mom!). The doc said that if she would have kept her 3 month appointments, they could have caught it at Stage 0 and wouldn't have needed 3 surgeries to cut it out.

So far, I've kept my appointments (due for one this month) with my dermatologist & there have been no changes. They're just keeping an eye on it because it is more likely to turn into cancer than the rest of my skin. But the sunscreen seems to be doing the trick so far.

Hang in there! I know how scary melanoma can be. Just keep putting on good sunblock over every bit of exposed skin every time you go outside & you should be fine (but please do follow up with doc as recommended so that if, Heaven forbid, you ever do start to have any issue, they can catch it at Stage 0 & easily eradicate it from your body with a simple office procedure -- my dad has also had a bunch of moles that turned cancerous -- basal cell -- but he always goes to doctor on a regular basis & they catch them super early & just cut them out and put a small band-aid over it and he's good. He's never had melanoma.).

Absolutely nothing replaces a live visit with a licensed dermatologist, but maybe using a skin cancer detection app like SkinVision would help put your mind to ease between visits? Just remember that they can have false positives/negatives so it's still important to see a live doctor on a regular basis, as recommended.

Thanks you guys. I actually had to look up what "CYA" was! Who knew that was a real thing ;).

I called dermo to have her explain further what she meant with the results and she said that she wanted to make sure there weren't residual spindle cells. She reassured me that there was absolutely no melanoma, pre-melanoma, or anything. Otherwise known as CYA hehe.