Recovering from SNB, WLE and skin graft and battling SNHS

Hi everyone,

I'm new on here and thought I'd share my Melanoma experience so far and my experience of the Scottish NHS. It's been an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone. 

I had a large pale flat mole under my right ankle since birth. Last summer it suddenly started to bleed.  After trying, for 3 months without success, to see my GP, I sent them a photo of the mole by email which launched them, belatedly,into action.

Mole was removed on 30th August 2022 by a Plastic Surgeon at my local Hospital. He, I now realise, knew it was Melanoma at the time as he told me he would certainly need to perform a WLE and skin graft, but "let's wait (approx 6 weeks) for the biopsy result". He advised I would find the stitches "tight". It was absolutely excruciating, I couldn't walk at all for 2 weeks (and only began walking normally again in early October 2022). Also, my local surgery treatment room managed to infect the wound whilst struggling to remove the stitches, which delayed healing. 

I received an automated SNHS call asking me to confirm attendance at the Hospital on 21st October 2022. I was actually also waiting for an Orthopedics appointment so I had to guess which department was expecting me!  

When I arrived at Plastics, I saw a nurse sticking his head round the door to stare at me, then duck back. The Plastic Surgeon then appeared  to call my name. Everything after that is a blur, understandably and I feel it wasn't helped by being told the worst case scenario first. I was told he would need to operate in November as the Melanoma was thick, just under 4mm, therefore I was Stage 2C and it was urgent to determine any spread to lymph nodes. 

To cut a very long story short, I was given 3 different dates for surgery, by my Surgeon. Each time when no further communication arrived, I would phone for updates and was told that I wasn't on any surgery list. Ultmately I was told no cancer staging surgery was happening due to lack of supply of nuclear medicine in December 2022. The mental stress and upset can only be described as torture. 

Finally, I was passed to a different Surgeon who operated on 12th January. He removed only the Sentinel Node as the Lymphoscintogram didn't show spread to the lymph nodes. However the skin graft to my right foot is much, much bigger than I expected, from ankle bone to just before my toes, so it's an extremely WIDE lesion excision. 

20th Jsnuary I had the first Dressing Clinic appointment and had to ask the nurse to soak the dressing off rather than rip the skin from the graft site. I was shocked to see my foot: hopefully the swelling will improve! Oh and my heel is dark blue from the dye. The skin graft donor site was above my hip and is healing well. 

Awaiting now the results of SNB and WLE biopsy which are supposed to arrive by mid February.

Wonder if anyone else has had skin staining from nuclear medicine?