The Little C

Melanoma, funyuns, frowny face scars

Before you read any of this, I am fine. I just ate a bag of Funyuns and washed it down with a Sprite. Sometimes I use attention-grabbing headlines to drum up interest in what would otherwise be a boring post. I mean, would you read a blog post called, “I’m totally fine and there’s nothing further to report?” Keep in mind that I’m OK.

I have a lot going on under my shirt. Where some people have chiseled abs, well-thought-out piercings and even more well-thought-out tattoos, I have worsening dad-bod and a full galaxy of moles. I call them “beauty marks” and if you have ever seen me without my shirt, you’ve noticed just how “beautiful” my upper torso is. I look like a cheetah that just ate another, much larger cheetah. Except I don’t have a lot of hair. I look like a hairless cheetah that ate a much larger cheetah. Or are the spots on the cheetah only on the fur? Enough. I’m chubby and I have spots. You get it.

OK, this is my fourteenth post and I am already spinning gems like, “I have a lot going on under my shirt.” Admit it, you didn’t think that I would be this far along when you were on posts three or four, did you? And yet, here we are!

Anyways, moles. I have a lot of them. Maybe 200? Some are darker, some are lighter. Some are browner than others. One has hairs growing out of it. Another looks like a comet. Word has it that the script of Forrest Gump was down to two lines for its famous phrase. Sadly, “Life is like Paul Schwartz’s upper torso,” came in second place to the bit about a box of chocolates.

I have some history of melanoma in my family so I have been diligent about seeing a dermatologist every year. Well, maybe less than diligent. I have been diligent about thinking about a dermatologist every year. And while I always schedule an office visit and get checked out, there is often more than a year between visits.

Over the years, I’ve seen a number of doctors to get my beauty marks checked out for signs of skin cancer. One of my earliest dermatologists rolled her eyes at me when I arrived and asked whether I ever wore sunscreen. (Pro tip: NEVER go to a dermatologist with a sunburn. You are just asking for a lecture. Cancel and go a few weeks later.)

One year an especially thorough doctor looked in my anus, which you can never really be ready for. No one should ever look in your anus for anything, unless you specifically arrive at the doctor’s office to have your anus inspected. I was caught off guard and uttered something like, “Let me know if you find my car keys, I can’t seem to find them.”

This helps explain why I’ve had so many different dermatologists over the years.

In each of my last couple of visits, my dermatologist found something “suspicious.” I use quotation marks because I haven’t a clue what makes one mole suspicious and another just a comet-shaped mole. Oh, doctors tell me what to look for, but I am usually too nervous that they are going to look at my anus that I can’t seem to follow the conversation. (If you think I’m being weird about this, the next time you are in a room with one other person, think to yourself, “This person may try to look in my anus,” and then see if you can just talk to them like it’s no big deal. Impossible!)

Suspicious moles get removed, ziplocked and sent to the lab for testing. A week or so later, I get a message saying that the skin sample tested negative for the various kinds of skin cancer. And a reminder to schedule my mole inspection for next year.

This year, the doctor removed a small mole on my side. After ziplock and testing, I got a different type of message. The message was, “You have melanoma.”

Of all the nomas, melanoma ranks in the middle. It’s way worse that tokonoma, which is a Japanese alcove for displaying art, but better than choriocarcinoma, which is cancer of the placenta that jumps to your lungs. This is why I’m calling it “little c.” Bad, but could be much worse.

Remember: Funions and Sprite. I’m fine!

My doctor told me that the cancer was small, shallow, and lazy, which are exactly the qualities you want in a skin cancer. My little c had just started its journey, like a cute baby hippo, content to just explore the world a little bit before becoming a murderous scourge. The growth was caught early and that the dangerous part of melanoma (its ability to spread to lymph nodes and blood stream) was not a big risk. This is where the lazy part was most helpful, as the melanoma had not yet started to replicate quickly. Hooray for lazy!

Skin cancers are treated aggressively, and the next step of my treatment was to excise the tissue of the affected effected problem area. They want to make sure they took all the bad shit out. To do that, they remove a huge swath of the skin and sub-tissue around where the mole used to be. For me, this was my “right flank” and if you ever want to feel like a piece of meat, go to the doctor’s office for a right flank excision.

I was a little nervous when I got to the office for my cleanout. I got a little more nervous when they said that my scar would be eight to nine centimeters long, mostly because I have no concept as to the length of a centimeter. They drew a picture of what they were going to cut out of me, and my eyes bugged out. It was enormous! It seemed like they were removing a mountain of flesh for my little cancerous molehill. (Just think of where I will be for blog post #50!)

Evidently, surgical dermatologists are wary of being compared to plastic surgeons. I learned this when I asked my doctor if she could do some lipo while I was open and was met with a scowl and a seemingly intentional lack of local anesthetic. But if you could address skin cancer AND dad bod in one big swoop, shouldn’t you at least try? Sheesh.

My procedure lasted less than 30 minutes and involved a lot of gouging with needles (anesthesia) and then nebulous pulling and tugging in the pain-deadened area. Early on, I thought I heard a vacuum cleaner. Here is the conversation that followed:

Me: Hey doc, is that a vacuum cleaner?

Dr: Yes. We are cauterizing your blood vessels as we go, so we need to clear out the air so we all don’t breathe in the smoke.

Me: Sure. Sure. Makes sense. [Throws up in own mouth and hums quietly to self like a crazy person for next 29 minutes.]

In the end, they flopped a diamond-sized chunk of me into a jar for further testing. It was pretty gross. The doctor and nurse stitched me up, slathered some glue over the wound and said that they would be in touch with the test results.

My wound is disgusting. It’s gunky, crusty, surrounded by rainbow-hued bruising and unironically shaped like a frowny face. And it’s like 100 inches long. If you asked AI “What is the worst thing in the world?”, it would return a picture of my wound (in a Dodger hat). I’m pretty sure you could use my wound instead of Ozempic and get the same level of appetite suppressant. So I guess I still have a lot going on under my shirt.

As far as little c’s go, I am very lucky. My diamond-shaped sample returned no further cancerous cells, which means they got all of it out. So that’s the good. The bad is that there’s a higher chance of developing more melanomas after they found the first one on you.

But who cares. I’m not one to dwell on uncertainty. I’m spending all my energy trying to figure out if I can call myself a cancer survivor without all the people in my life who’ve had much worse nomas getting mad at me. I’m tempted to, especially if I’ve done something to irritate my wife, but it seems like you need more than short, shallow, and lazy to join the club. We’ll see.

For now, I’m just taking life one Funyun at a time.