How I Beat Malignant Melanoma
by PJ Tanner
(USA)
It's Malignant Melanoma, your doctor tells you. And you shudder. The words send a chill down your spine.
When my doctor told me, nearly a decade ago, that I had skin cancer, I did shudder that way. My whole life flashed before my eyes.
I'd come in to tell him a mole I'd always had, had begun to change and grow in the past few months.
I knew what it probably was, but until the moment he brought back the test results, I held out hope that it was some other, superficially similar but much less serious, diagnosis.
I had always loved the sun. Since the time I was a little boy I had loved sitting out on the beach, watching the sea gulls fly and reading a good book.
Oh, I'd been careful. I'd used sun block every time. I wonder, though, if you can be careful with something like the sun. I no longer think so. Not after my experience.
Panicked as my doctor's grim pronouncement made me, I was calmed when he told me the Malignant Melanoma Skin Cancer was in its early stages, and could be excised.
I would not need chemotherapy! I thanked the doctor profusely, I shook his hand eagerly. There was a relatively minor surgery he would perform instead, he said.
Well, needless to say, he did perform that surgery. I am alive today to tell you so, because he did.
The mole was removed and several more layers of skin below it, down to its root, were removed. The doctor did not stop removing tissue until, under the microscope, the tissue showed no signs of the cancer.
He did a wonderful job, handling the Malignant Melanoma and he saved my life. I thank him every day.
Melanoma Skin Cancer
Malignant Melanoma Skin Cancer
Skin Cancer Melanoma
Skin Cancer Moles
