Growing up in Virginia Beach I was always in the sun. In high school I worked at a tanning salon, sometimes tanning up to twice a day. At the time, it was about having the perfect tan in my prom dress or at least having a decent glow at school. I certainly wasn’t concerned about the potential damage I could be doing to my skin. It wasn’t until my early twenties, probably around 23 when I completely stopped visiting the tanning salons and became obsessed with self tanners! (Side note, my favorite is Tarte Braziilliance with the mit!) My Favvvv self tanner you can get here!!
Several years later, after the birth of our first daughter, I felt it was time to take better care of myself, so I went to the dermatologist after a long hiatus, for my first skin check. I remember having a couple of moles removed, but nothing serious and I continued to get checked annually.
The end of summer 2014 I noticed a mole on my lower back. It looked different than any I had ever seen before. It had a typical dark color complexion but also had a white ring around the center, almost resembling a halo. Having no idea what I was looking at, I immediately made an appointment with my dermatologist, and in fact my doctor tells me the mole with the white halo looking thing is actually called a ”halo mole.” The good news is my dermatologist tells me they are 99% benign, meaning non-cancerous and that I would be fine. We left it alone and proceeded to do our yearly skin checks.
End of summer 2015 (a year later) my halo mole was still there. It didn’t change much expect for the halo around it seemed to be more apparent. A bit more concerned, I visit my dermatologist and again, she didn’t remove it, saying the same thing as before… they’re 99% non-cancerous and not to worry.
After only a few months passing and a persistent feeling of unease (March 2016) I went back in and asked my dermatologist to remove my halo mole. Something inside of me kept urging me to get it removed, regardless of the 99% non-cancerous probability. My relief of having that off of my body was short lived as barley a week after she removed it, I got a phone call saying that the “halo mole” that was 99% non-cancerous, was in fact multiplying as a type of melanoma skin cancer. It was the most devastating news and the scariest part was they didn’t know what stage the cancer was at the time. With the severity of my case I was in surgery the following week.
During surgery they cut into my groin area and lower back to take the lymph nodes out in order to biopsy and verify if and where the cancer had spread. It was a long Friday night in the Operating room and a much longer week that followed, as we waited for the results. Easily the scariest week of my life. Knowing I had this halo mole for over a year and not knowing if it spread to my lymph nodes or organs. Like most people, I googled everything about skin cancer, halo mole, melanoma, etc. and of course that only freaked me out even more.
Very fortunate for me though, the call we received around 9pm on Thursday night, nearly a week after the surgery, was positive and joyful. Results came back as stage 1 melanoma skin cancer… I fell to me knees crying tears of pure relief. The surgeon removed everything and thankfully nothing spread into any of my organs.
Post Surgery
My Reminder
As you can imagine, I now get checked very frequently-every 3 months and despite my best efforts to steer clear of direct sun exposure, I recently found out that I have Basal Cell Carcinoma Cancer on the right side of my forehead. I am getting Mohs surgery this week to get it removed -Mohs surgery is an invasive procedure, and includes having the surgeon remove layer upon layer of skin until the cancer is fully removed. We don’t know how much he will have to remove prior to going in and because it’s on my face, it’s a bit scarier for me, as I’m sure you can imagine. Even though scars can be scary each one tells a story. I’m using mine to hopefully make people more aware of the world’s most common cancer.
I strongly believe it’s important to raise awareness of skin cancer. It’s tricky to identify sometimes and it’s possible to get it later in life even if you’ve been very careful with sunscreen, rash guards and staying out of the sun as much as possible. Anyone can get it at any age and everyone should get skin checks regularly.
I’ve included a link to the Skin Cancer Foundation. It’s the only international organization devoted solely to education, prevention, early detection, and prompt treatment of the world’s most common cancer. Please take a minute to donate and/or more importantly make an appointment to your dermatologist, if you aren’t already getting checked yearly.
Til my next post…