My story

wanderer · New User Joined: 08 Nov 2009 Posts: 4

I'm a self-admitted forum junkie so when I found out I had skin cancer, I looked up a forum to research the topic and also post my experience on in case other people search like I do.

For quite some time, I've had a small mole/ brown patch on my back that would itch now and then. After a while, it would start to bleed when I itched it. I figured it was probably something more serious but let it go. Finally, after getting tired of itching and then bleeding a bit through my T-shirt, I made an appointment with my primary care doc. He concluded I needed to have a dermatologist take a look at it.

The dermatologist agreed that it was something that needed further inspection and did an in-office excision. Her feeling was that if it was a melanoma- which she assumed it was, an excision would be necessary anyway, so she skipped the scraping that would normally come first.

I walked out of the office with 2" cut on my back, right by my scapula.

The pathology report came back malanoma. While it was not very deep (.5mm), there was scar tissue further down which indicated that there USED to be cancer cells further down. Even though she cut a fair amount away, it was not the 1 cm they currently believe to be the best safe zone, so a WLE (wide local excision) was scheduled.

At that same visit- where she told me I had melanoma- she decided to check me much more closely.

I walked out of that office visit with three scrapings. One on the back of my neck, one on my trapezeus and one on my lower rib cage area.

The pathology from those scrapings showed one Basel Cell and two "abnormal" but not melanoma. The two abnormal ones would need to have small excisions.

The visit with the surgeon was scheduled immediately for the one on my back. He said I had Stage II malanoma with "no bad"... meaning no metastsis and no other "bad" things I don't remember the details of. We discussed doing a Sentinal Node Biopsy, but considering my age/ pathology report etc, we decided against it at this time. He agreed to do the WLE on my back as well as the smaller one on my rib cage during the same visit. I will have to go to the dermatologist to have the one on my neck excised.

The surgery was scheduled for the following week. That was about 4 days ago.

The surgery went well, although the excision was too large- my skin too tight- to pull back together so they had to undercut the skin to release it from the surrounding areas so it would stretch more. While it's still bandaged, the incision on my back looks to be about 7" long and the one on my rib cage is maybe 1-1.5".

The scars won't bother me- I'm just happy to have this issue being handled.

Hopefully the pathology from the excision comes back with news that they have enough free space.

I'll share more when I know more.

wanderer · New User Joined: 08 Nov 2009 Posts: 4

Had my follow up.

The pathology report showed no issues with edge clearance so that indicates they removed enough.

I had researched to find out the 5 and 10 year "survival rates" and was a bit concerned to find out for stage IIA, the 10 year SR was about 66%.

When I mentioned this to the surgeon, he said, "you don't have stage IIA.... you have, hold on, let's look it up."

I said, "I thought you told me I had stage II with no 'bad' " (he did).

Turns out, I have stage 1 which has a very high rate of survivability.

Bandages came off my back today. What looked like a 7" scar with all that bandaging is actually a 4" scar right across my shoulder blade.

I go back to the dermatologist at the end of the month to have her excise the area on the back of my neck the surgeon didn't "need" to do.

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