There are people who are confronted with a problem or situation and just push it to the back of their mind and hold the attitude that it is nothing, and this is the attitude I adopted with my recent experience.My mum, who not to forget has been absolutely amazing throughout this whole thing, approached me the night before we would receive my biopsy results to find out if I did infact have what the doctors had thought, to ask me if I was prepared for my diagnosis and if I had questions in mind of what to ask. However, mum being mum would never use the term “skin cancer” , so with my “it’s nothing attitude” I replied, “just say it mum, it’s nothing it’s just like a scrape on the knee” … Only to be diagnosed the next day, with melanoma. But still I continued to push it to the back of my mind, and now tomorrow is dawning on me. And, tomorrow means Monday 23rd June… Surgery day. Now, there wouldn’t be so much of a problem if I had of just prepared myself for tomorrow and not pushed it to the back of my mind, and also if I hadn’t of experienced this before.. because I now know what to expect tomorrow and how the surgery will feel and as tomorrow draws closer, I am becoming gradually more worried, and I am also becoming more aware of my circumstances. You would think that with the first blog I wrote and all the information embedded in it, I would be more than aware of my situation and it would be the only thing on my mind, but it hasn’t been. I have always been wary of the moles on my upper back, and it was only recently that someone else noticed that one of them had been bleeding, I brought this to my mums attention, who looked closer and noticed the mole had also changed colour and grown a considerable amount. The next step was a meeting with my gp, who reffered me to a skin cancer specialist at lytham hospital. On the 22cnd may I arrived at lytham hospital, only 5 days before my family holiday to turkey which I later had to withdraw from. I expected a quick appointment with nothing to worry about, but I received the opposite. I was instead, told of the suspicions of skin cancer and the urgency for the mole to be removed, and it was infact removed that day. It was then a waiting game, waiting for the biopsy results to tell us whether the suspicions were right, and they were. I was diagnosed on Thursday 12 June and when the news was broken.. there was no lump in my throat, no tears welling in my eyes and no parts of my body were shaking. Yet a day before my surgery, and I am experiencing all of those things. Referring back to where I earlier mentioned that the main source of my fear for tomorrow is the fact I know what to expect, brings me to mention the surgery that I unexpectedly experienced on the day of my first ever appointment at lytham hospital. “I’m hated for this”, the surgeon told me as he injected me with anastetic to numb the pain of what he was about to perform and it didn’t take me long to realise why he was hated either. A sharp cold pain shot through my back and sent a shiver through my entire body, the rest felt slow and highly uncomfortable. “I just want to go home”, I told my mum.. crying like a hungry new born baby. Mum sat with me through the rest of the surgery, reassuring me and wiping the tears away from my eyes. It was soon over. I went out later that day, shopping, spending time with friends and enjoying a lovely walk in the evening. The painful and horrible experience from early that day was forgotten. And I know that tomorrow, the process will be the same and with the surgery starting at 9, by the afternoon I will be enjoying time with my friends and the morning again, will be forgotten, but for now I am still dreading the morning. More positively, when it comes to friends, I have been very lucky with a certain number of mine through this hard time. Not only have I had support and lovely thoughtful messages from family, I’ve also had time devoted by my friends specifically to cheer me up, presents to let me know I’m thought of, and texts and phone calls to check I’m feeling okay and to remind me that I always have someone to turn to. And it is my friends and my family, that have made this experience easier and more bearable.
