Biopsy

I am reminded of something that one of my writing teachers at PCC said during one of the first days of class, “Three of the most beautiful words you can hear someone say to you, “It’s not cancer.” ”

I don’t know that for certain yet myself, I still have 7-10 days until my lab results come back.

I’ve had a mole, or a nevus if you want to get into the medical terminology, on my left on for as far as I can remember. I inherited that trait from my father, it is his genes that account for the little dots of color scattered across my body. A pairing that really does not go well with the pale skin and red hair I inherited from my mother.

That mole on my left arm though, unlike the rest I have, has not stayed the same since it first appeared. The changes were slow enough that I never noticed myself, but when I went in for an annual physical a month back the doctor spotted it right away and suggested that I get it checked out.

There is this ABCDE checklist for moles, to recognize when a mole is perhaps changing or developing into melanoma (which, for those that don’t know, is skin cancer):

A – Asymmetry: Is one half of the mole unlike the other half?
B – Border : Does the mole have an irregular, scalloped, or poorly defined border?
C – Color : Do you see more than one color in the mole
D – Diameter : Do you have a mole bigger than the size of a pencil eraser?
E – Evolving : Do you have a mole that looks different from the rest? Is it changing?

The spot on my arm fit most of these, enough so that my doctor referred me over to a dermatologist and suggested I get an appointment as soon as possible, to have it biopsied and sent off to a lab to be tested.

Making the appointment itself was tricky, I was told initially that I wouldn’t be able to get in until early September, because of how far out they were booked. When I explained that I would be overseas at that time they replied that it’d have to be in October instead. And then, while I was on the phone with them, someone called in and cancelled and I got an appointment with only two days notice in advance.

The offices themselves were nicer, more upscale than I am used to seeing a doctor’s office be. It didn’t click until I was filling out the forms and I reached the “Cosmetic Surgery Information Request Form” that it clicked to me that a lot of the dermatology business is likely cosmetic, removing skin blemishes for the sake of vanity rather than medical need.

The doctor was young, polite, fair-skinned like me so sympathetic with the mild sunburn I was sporting. He pulled out an imaging loupe, looked at my arm, and ran down the list of risk factors about the mole and what my options were to have it treated. I had choices but I wanted a definite answer, an end to the worry (and the nagging to have it checked).

A shave biopsy. It would be cut off, and the mole sent to the lap to be certain, one way or another, if it was cancerous or not.

The doctor left to get the tools needed, a 15mm diameter mole needing a certain size of tool to cut it out. The nurse meanwhile had two syringes of local anesthetic to inject into the skin around and beneath the mole, enough such that my arm was swollen up a little around the site of the mole.

The cutting was quick and painless. The cutting implement was basically a thin razor blade, mounted on a plastic handle, sharp enough that it went through the skin and flesh without pause.

The mole was placed in a sample container to be sent to a lab and tested. The wound was wiped with alcohol, again painless because of all the anesthetic that had been injected, and patted dry for a moment to wipe up the blood.

And then the cauterizing tool was brought out, to help stop the bleeding and reduce the risk of infection. The cauterizing tool was basically a miniature arc welder, to thin metal rods sticking out of a plastic handle, with current running through them. Moved back and forth over the wound, the faint scent of my flesh burning beneath the tool, not a smell that can be easily described.

Afterwards some polysporin, a bandage, instructions for how to care for it, and out the door to head home.

The entire appointment took barely fifteen minutes, the paper work I had to fill out as a new patient took me longer to do than the interview and biopsy did.

Now, a day later, my arm aches just a little. No pain, not really, maybe just a faint itchiness where the wound is.

And now the waiting, 7-10 days until the lab results show up in my mail box, or a phone call sooner if the results are bad.