Stitches out and surgery booked

So the stitches came out a few days ago - it only hurts a little bit and it's over in less than a minute. This is how it looked yesterday:

I had my appointment with the plastic surgeon the other day, or rather, one of his registrars whose name escapes me. From now on, I'll be under the care of Mr Phil Brackley at Whiston and St Helens (he's a Mr rather than a Dr because he's a consultant.) It was a huge crappy day too. There are two hospitals 5 miles apart; Whiston is where I will have the surgery and St Helens is where my consult was. The appointment letter came the same day as the appointment and I'd already left for work at that point so I didn't see it in time. If I had, I'd have gone to St Helens. As it was, I went to Whiston, spent 20 minutes trying to find a parking space in the very full car park, paid £1.50 for literally 5 minutes parking because as soon as I got to reception they said I was at the wrong hospital. Back in the car, across town through rush hour, managed to park....and then still had an hour's wait because they were running really behind. And then I had to pay £3 because I was ONE minute over their free parking limit.

The registrar looked spookily like my best friend, which made it pretty uncomfortable when he had to feel my groin for enlarged lymph nodes. Also, appallingly, he looked at my calf and thought out loud that it might be big enough to close without a skin graft. Having googled skin grafts, though, that is a good thing. He says he will take off about 8cm off flesh and skin and then sew it shut. 

A lovely secretary called Angela phoned yesterday to say my pre-op is next Friday (blood tests etc, which will take a few hours) then they want to admit me at 1pm the following Tuesday for X-ray and lymph node mapping. Surgery will be the Wednesday morning and I'll be released either Wednesday evening or Thursday depending on how I feel. Oh and I asked if I could sleep at home on Tuesday night and be admitted first thing on Wednesday morning, and she said yes! Providing I'm in by 8am. That means I can keep my indoor skydiving appointment on Tuesday evening. Bugger cancer, I've got some freefalling to do!

I reckon I'll be good to go when I wake up, to be honest, and my plan is to leave hospital as soon as possible. Reluctantly I've agreed to let my husband drop me off and collect me because I'd not be insured to drive after a general anaesthetic, and if the car seat rubbed against the skin graft it could rub it clean off. I really hate depending on other people to do things for me. I haven't told anyone about the cancer except him and my boss, and that was only because I need the time off work. I did consider not even telling my husband but I know he'd be really upset if I didn't. I'm not telling anyone else though. What's the point? There's nothing they can do and I don't want to upset my friends and family. My parents would just be devastated and that is the problem; people hear cancer and assume you'll need chemo or you're about to croak. People look at you differently and use terms like 'cancer survivor'. I'm not surviving cancer because thankfully it's not killing me at this stage. Unlike some unfortunate others, this isn't a 'battle for survival'. It's just annoying and inconvenient. 

The registrar told me all the statistics when I asked for them. There's an 85% chance that they won't find cancer in the lymph node/s that they remove. That's why I'm not telling anyone, because there's only a 15% chance that I will need further treatment after this.

Images of my leg

I thought it'd be handy to record images of the melanoma and the resulting scar. I didn't get a photo of it right after surgery but imagine a bloodied bandage and you're there.

The melanoma:

A few days after I took the bandage off:

Today, ten days after surgery:

The stitches come out on Monday morning. I'd never had stitches before so for anyone who's wondering, this is how it felt:

The surgery mostly didn't hurt. The area around the mole was injected several times with local anaesthetic but the needles only hurt a little bit. Once the area had gone numb, the mole was removed very quickly with a 2mm margin of skin around it. This is to try and get all of the cancer cells out. The incision is kind of an eye shape - apparently it makes less of a scar that way. I had 8 stitches in, and it was all over before I knew it. It was so numb and I am so unbothered by blood that I actually watched them for a bit. It's weird to see a big hole in your leg and not feel it! The worst part was definitely 12 hours later when the anaesthetic had worn off. It bloody killed, to be honest. The next day it just throbbed and then it got better to the point now where I can only feel it if I cross my legs funny (the stitches are on the back of my leg just below the crease of my knee). Oh, the last thing I should say is that after a week the stitches got really itchy. I just scratched around them and used an ice pack when it got unbearable. It'll be interesting to see how small the scar is. In the last photo, you can see the yellow scab forming in the cut, which is good and means it'll all hold together. The human body is amazing! Well, apart from growing a melanoma. That was shitty of it.

Up 'til now

It's hard to find timescales online of what to expect. This is how it went for me:

December 27th: I found a big raised mole on the back of my leg. I feared the worst immediately so booked an appointment with my GP.

December 29th: Saw my GP, Catherine, who couldn't confirm it was melanoma but said she would be surprised if it wasn't. She was worried enough to make an emergency referral to the dermatology department at the hospital.

January 4th: First appointment at the hospital. Saw the dermatologist,  Dr Elizabeth Stewart, who wanted the mole removed ASAP for further investigation.

January 11th: Had the mole removed (called an incision biopsy) under local anaesthetic. She took a 2mm margin of skin and I had 8 stitches put in. 

January 19th: Back to hospital for the biopsy results. No messing around from Dr Stewart. Her first words were "I'm sorry but it's cancer". It's a Stage 1B Melanoma and was 1.8mm thick (so only 0.2mm off being Stage 2A, which seems considerably scarier).

So in the next 4 weeks I will have a further 2cm of skin removing from each side of where it's stitched up (how annoying!) and I'll also have the sentinel lymph node removed from my groin and biopsied. Basically, if the cancer has spread beyond the original site, it will have travelled to the nearest lymph nodes. By injecting low radioactive dye into the scar, they can see which lymph node it would have travelled to (called the sentinel lymph node) and they'll take it out to look at it. If it's clear of cancer cells, then chances are the cancer didn't spread. So by taking out another lot of skin (called a wide local excision) they're trying to make sure they've got every last scrap. All that will be done under general anaesthetic. 

Bloody hell, how do I know all this stuff already? I really don't want to turn into a verbal Gray's Anatomy. 

Anyway, I have the stitches out on Monday then I'm seeing the plastic surgeon on Tuesday who will no doubt tell me what I just told you. I think there was something about having an X-ray 12 hours before surgery too, and maybe something about taking blood, but I can't remember everything they said. Oh well, I guess I'll find out soon!

Upon diagnosis...

When someone tells you that you have cancer, I think you're meant to feel upset. Frightened, worried, cloudy-headed, maybe angry at fate or god. I don't feel any of those things. I was diagnosed yesterday, although it didn't come as a great shock because having a big black mole appear on your leg from nowhere is a fairly big hint. So when the doctor came in and said straight away that it was a malignant melanoma, I felt mostly...interested. I enjoy learning new things and this is another new thing. Is curiosity the normal reaction to a Stage 1B melanoma diagnosis? See! I am learning the lingo already.

Today, I mainly feel annoyance. The timing is very inconvenient, having started a new career last week, and I'm also angry at my body for betraying me. My body and I, we don't do ill. We don't have the time or the patience for this nonsense. So to find out your body has switched teams without telling you...it's annoying. It's how I felt when I found out my cat was going for naps and biscuits next door.

The medical stuff has already started. I've had two phonecalls today from the hospital telling me I'm seeing a plastic surgeon next Tuesday as an emergency referral. I think he just wants to talk to me about the surgery. I have a horrible feeling this will all be very time-consuming and involve a lot of driving, waiting rooms and out-of-date magazines. Thank god for mobile internet.