| Diagnosed Today - Amelanotic Melanoma
I'm 46 and have had my share of pre-cancerous and squemas cell carcinomas frozen or cut out over the past 12 years. About 11 months ago, I noticed an odd "spot" on my face, near my mouth. It didn't look like what I am used to looking for so I didnt worry about it. It wasn't dark, or raised (at first), it looked almost like a scar. Then about 6 months ago I noticed it seemed to be bigger. I called to make a derm appointment. When I showed it to the doctor, she said we should do a biopsy, but thought it would be okay.
At 8:00 a.m. this morning I get a call at work from the doctor telling me that there had been an unexpected result from the biopsy and they had sent it to an outside lab for further testing, which is why the results had taken 2 weeks. It was an amelanotic melanoma, and I needed to get into see a neck and head surgeon ASAP.
I met with the surgeon this afternoon, and he scheduled my surgery for February 5. They believe I'm a stage 1, based on a depth of 0.6mm. Not really sure what all this means yet, but at least it looks like I caught it relatively early.
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