Hi
I had a lesion (I thought it was a mole) removed from my arm last week as it was suspicious and it was itchy too. . I was called in quickly and had it removed. They said it would be 2 to 4 weeks to get the results from this. I don't know what would happen next either if it's OK or not OK or maybe I shouldn't be thinking about it until I find out more. It's just always on my mind.
Hi Diamondring and a very warm welcome to the group which I hope you'll find is both an informative and supportive place to be.
It's natural that the possibility of having melanoma is praying on your mind and I would echo the advice of Warmington in trying to do things to distract yourself during this time.
You asked what would happen one way or the other when you get your results. If it turns out to be benign then you will be discharged and no follow up treatment or monitoring will be needed.
If it does turn out to be melanoma then you'll have a wide local excision (WLE), where a further area of tissue all around the original excision biopsy site is removed to make sure no stray cells have been left behind. You might also be invited to have a sentinel lymph node biopsy, depending on the depth of the melanoma. This is when the first sentinel lymph node nearest the biopsy site is removed and tested to see if any cancer cells have spread there.
If the results of the WLE and SLNB are clear you'll have follow up checks for a number of years afterwards, the length of time depending on what your melanoma has been staged at. If the results shoe the presence of cancer cells then you'll be offered further treatment.
Hopefully you'll be coming back here in a few weeks time to tell us that the lesion was benign.
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
