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!