Hello! New here and some advice needed...

Hello

So sorry to hear of your situation. The worry and waiting is so stressful.

You are looking very far ahead when you don’t even know if the mole is a melanoma yet. Don’t know why I’m saying that when it’s exactly what I have done at every stage since I got referred for a suspicious mark on my foot in Feb ‘24 so I know exactly where you are coming from!

I’m assuming they will just remove the mole first, or do a biopsy, which should be a relatively minor procedure and you should be able to walk fine after a few days if so. I’m assuming that only if it turns out to be a melanoma will they do a wide local excision (WLE) and possibly a sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB).

Mine is similar to yours in that I had a mark on the heel of my foot. I first had a biopsy which took only a few days to heal and I could walk fine soon after. But it turned out to be a melanoma so I subsequently had the WLE and SLNB. This took 3 months to heal completely which was very restrictive - needed to keep my foot elevated and I didn’t walk on it (or drive) until it was completely healed. I had twice weekly dressing changes at my GP practice for about 6 weeks then weekly ones with my partners doing the changes in between. 

Hopefully yours will turn out not to be a melanoma and you can put this all behind you. But if you have any other questions that I might be able to answer from my own experience, just let me know. I can totally get your anxiety about how to manage this with a new job but maybe it’s best not to make any decisions when you don’t even know whether this is a melanoma yet? 

All the best

Hi Cerys, thanks for your reply! Yes I know it seems a bit previous to be thinking this far ahead, but they seem pretty certain that it's a melanoma - two consultants and GP have all indicated as much. I've been told I'll probably need a WLE and it's to be done by the plastic surgeons. I've had an email confirming all that. I feel like because the job will involve me being on my feet a lot, I will need to make sure I have sufficient recovery time.

The other reason for thinking ahead I guess is that I need to give 3 months notice at my current position - so quite significant forward planning is needed! I have decided now thought that I'm going to ask the school if they can delay my start date till after the Autumn half term, to be on the safe side. That will give me a bit more leeway. Just hoping that they are ok with that! 

As a quick update on my situation: I had the surgery yesterday to remove the lesion. They had originally just intended to do a biopsy, however when the surgeon saw it (it is a horrid blob!) he decided to just remove the whole thing and do the skin graft there and then, so that's a relief. It's all happened very quickly, which is great. I was expecting things to take a long time, from my previous experience with breast cancer treatment as I had so many delays before my treatment started and I get very bad anxiety.

The surgeon was amazing and the procedure straightforward. I had a skin graft with skin taken from the thigh. I was allowed to have my phone during the procedure to distract myself (although I had to promise not to take any pictures!). I just watched funny videos of cats mainly :-D The actual procedure took about an hour (although I was in the hospital for nearly six hours all in all).

I now have to keep the foot elevated as much as possible and try not to walk on it too much. I have a dressing check in a week and probably then at least another week of relative immobility. They've said that because of where it is, the skin graft may not take, but that isn't a problem it will just potentially take longer to heal and not be as tidy.

Now just waiting for the biopsy results, I think they are supposed to take a couple of weeks.