January 9th. I saw a Plastic Surgeon who looked up the CTscan notes and was able to tell me the scan had found nothing else. That was a huge relief although I was aware of being jittery during the whole interview.
He said the biopsy showed a depth of 0.8cm which identifies the melanoma as Stage 1, but after examination that he thought it might be thicker than that.
I am to have surgery within the next two weeks to remove the tumour (note the change in terms from melanoma to tumour) taking 1cm of tissue around it. Usually he would take 3cm but it is not much more than that away from my clitoris which he wants to avoid compromising since that would make later reconstruction much more difficult.. This op will not involve any skin graft and will leave a 'nasty scar' but he wants to be sure he has removed all of the cancerous cells before doing a reconstruction. This first op will be done as day surgery using local anaesthetic and take between 30 and 45 minutes so I can go home afterwards. I could have asked for a GA but knowing that the biopsy was painless I prefer to be able to go home the same day. The stiches will have to be removed, dissolving ones are not really an option given the site.
The second operation (under general anaesthetic) will remove a further 2cm and probably involve 'flap surgery' where a piece of skin from my inner thigh will be rotated to cover the site where the tumour was removed.
Depending on the histopathology results, I might also need to have a sentinel lymph node biopsy.
He was very clear about what is going to happen and why.
So: emotional. Today I am very emotional. My Partner MP is useless, I can't talk to him about this and he seems to have chosen to ignore it all. He's really squeamish and I feel bad enough as it is without forcing him to let me talk about it. My family and several of my friends also know about it and I can talk to them so I'm not totally alone or unsupported. I've never thought my bits were beautiful and already think they're really ugly because of the melanoma; it's hard not to be able to get reassurance that I'm still a sexually attractive female.
