Well, I'm now something I never thought I'd be, though now that I think about it, it doesn't honestly surprise me that this has happened to me. I'm a cancer survivor.

Last week, I went to see a Dermatology Surgeon to find out about the possibility of surgical intervention of the hidradenitis sores that plague me. In the exam, he found a discolored and oddly shaped mole among the many moles on my back. It was taken off with a shave biopsy and turns out to be a malignant melanoma of the spreading superficial type, and was given a stage 1 diagnoses on the scale that is used for these things. Yesterday, I went back in and they surgically excised the entire area of skin down to the fatty layer beneath. Not a pleasant thing to undergo at all. Today it is VERY sore and painful, but at least they are sure they got it all off. Of course, I have to wait a few days to find out if there is any more melanoma cancer in the area they removed, but hopefully they got it all with the biopsy as they hoped to do.

Like I said, it really doesn't surprise me that this happened to me. I did have a pre-melanoma on my left arm removed about 7 years ago or so, and since I have a long history of full sun exposure due to my years of farming and working in the recycling/scrap metal field in the past, plus all the nasty farm chemicals I was exposed to years ago, I figured this could happen sometime. My Dad had had 3 or 4 of these similar melanomas before he passed on. So yeah.

They caught it as early as one could hope too, so all should be well. I now get to go in every 6 months and have mole checks done to catch any future incidents early too.

Link to photo of the surgery site below.

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/15056975/