I went to the doctor in late June to have a few things checked out, and he decided to go ahead and have one of my moles removed. My grandfather died of melanoma and my mom has already had it, so I knew that my skin has the potential for some pretty bad cancer. I didn't think anything of it until the pathology report came back and I needed to have it re-done, taking a bigger piece of my arm this time. That was a little scary, but it got even worse when the second pathology report came back and they decided to refer me to the Huntsman Cancer Institute.
All I could think about was that I was only 23 and that Dave and Emily need me. So, I met with a surgical oncologist and he had his pathologist look at my slides (from the first two surgeries). He called me two days later saying that the report came back positive for melanoma. He wanted me to come up the next week so they could do a more invasive surgery and remove all of the cancer cells. We drove up to the LDS hospital at 5:30 am on Monday, August 25th. They knocked me out to do the surgery, so I only remember being wheeled around on a gurney, but when we had a follow-up appointment the very next day, my doctor told me that everything had been successful and that they had gotten all of the cancer cells. YAY!
This really was a wake up call for me that I shouldn't put off till tomorrow what I can do today. I don't want to procrastinate anymore (I still do sometimes), and I want to be a wife and mother that appreciates the process of growing up. I will always have a scar and a divot in my arm, like a shark bite, to remind me that life is too short to wait to do the important things.
All I could think about was that I was only 23 and that Dave and Emily need me. So, I met with a surgical oncologist and he had his pathologist look at my slides (from the first two surgeries). He called me two days later saying that the report came back positive for melanoma. He wanted me to come up the next week so they could do a more invasive surgery and remove all of the cancer cells. We drove up to the LDS hospital at 5:30 am on Monday, August 25th. They knocked me out to do the surgery, so I only remember being wheeled around on a gurney, but when we had a follow-up appointment the very next day, my doctor told me that everything had been successful and that they had gotten all of the cancer cells. YAY!
This really was a wake up call for me that I shouldn't put off till tomorrow what I can do today. I don't want to procrastinate anymore (I still do sometimes), and I want to be a wife and mother that appreciates the process of growing up. I will always have a scar and a divot in my arm, like a shark bite, to remind me that life is too short to wait to do the important things.
