This Could Have Had A Very Different Ending or What I Have In Common with Bob Marley.

I wouldn't consider myself high maintenance when it comes to my appearance.   A dab of eyeliner and a quick swipe of lipstick, and I am usually good to go.  It has been at least three years since I have had my nails done, but I do enjoy a good pedicure.  

Sometime in early 2020 I noticed a shadow at the edge of my thumbnail but assumed that I bumped it and it would go away.  I kept noticing that it was there and getting a bit bigger, but didn't want to go anywhere near the doctor as I didn't want to get Covid.  I was an early adopter of social distancing and wearing a mask, and once I discovered the joy of ordering groceries online, there was really no need for me to go anywhere.  

For the next few months I was happy living in my cocoon.  The weather was nice, and I would work and relax on my back porch where there was a quiet peace.  Ryan decided that he was done with baseball so we were able to relax for the first time in six years.  There was no running around from one game to another.  Life was quite good.  

My sister and I often have lunch together.  We would eat in my car and catch up on life.  In early October we were enjoying an unseasonably warm day when I mentioned that I had this line on my fingernail, and I wondered why it wouldn't go away.  Of course Ann said "you should really get that checked."  We joked about how it would be just my luck to be the first person we knew to have fingernail cancer.  

I kept putting off going to the doctor because my doctor that I had for 30+ years had retired.  We were in the middle of a pandemic, and I didn't want to bother my new doctor that I hadn't even met with a line on my fingernail.  I finally called and made the appointment.  I went in and introduced myself and told her how embarrassed I was to be bothering her with such a stupid thing.  We talked for a bit and she said that she thought it wasn't anything but that I should see a dermatologist.  

Here is where I should have seen the first red flag.  She had me set up with a dermatologist within 3 days.  Not thinking anything about it, I went in and again explained how embarrassed I was to be bothering them with a line on my fingernail.  She looked at it and said that she thought it was a mole under my fingernail and since 49 year old white people don't usually have moles under their fingernails,  I should really get a biopsy.  Oh, and was I free that afternoon as the doctor happened to be in the office and had some time to do it.  This should have been my second red flag.  I thought, oh, how convenient that I could get this over with.  

I went back that afternoon and we shall not talk about what they did, but suffice it to say, they had to take the sample by the base of my nail and not the tip.  Here is where I missed red flag number 3.  On the way out of the room, the doctor said that my next stop would be a hand surgeon.  I took that to mean that if this was bad my next stop would be a hand surgeon.  

I waited a week and hadn't heard anything back so I assumed that everything was fine and I got my thumb mutilated for no reason.  I was ready to put the whole thing behind me.  Dave can be relentless so he made me call on Friday to get the results.  When I called, the girl that answered the phone said she would look up my chart.  There was an awkward pause and she put me on hold.  She came back and she said that they weren't back yet and someone would call me on Monday.  I did get an uneasy feeling about it, but Max, my dog, was really sick and I put it out of my head thinking that I didn't want to borrow trouble.  That was red flag number 4.  I chose to ignore that one.  

Monday rolls around and I get a call from the nurse at the dermatologist who tells me that what I had was in fact melanoma and she was scheduling an appointment with the hand surgeon.  Leave it to me to get fingernail cancer.  The good news was that it wasn't deep and should be easily removed.  We talked about how long it might take to grow my nail back, and then hung up.  

I went to see the surgeon and he came in the room and told me that I wasn't going to like what he had to tell me.  I was expecting him to tell me that he was going to take my fingernail off and that it might not grow back flat.  What he really told me was that he was going to remove the entire nail bed and that my nail wouldn't grow back at all.  If it went really deep, he might have to remove my thumb to the first knuckle.  I didn't miss that red flag.  I appreciated how up front he was and asked if they were going to do it before the end of the year as I had met our deductible.  He looked at me like I was crazy and said that this wasn't something we should mess around with and we would do it next week.  At this point I fully understood what was going on.    

Before I knew it, I was getting surgery that required a skin graft, twilight sedation and a nerve block.  That was way more than I bargained for.  Because I like to do things all the way, we had to do it twice because they didn't get clean margins the first time.    

It turns out that this is the kind of cancer that killed Bob Marley.  (I know you all thought we had the same sense of rhythm.) His was on his big toe and because he was Jamaican, it was not as noticeable as it was on me.  I was incredibly lucky that I didn't wait any longer.  

Here are some of the lessons I learned from this experience:

1.  I need to be my own health advocate.  There is really nothing too insignificant to share with your doctor if something is changing.  There was no need to be embarrassed or to feel like I was wasting someone's time.  

2.  This type of melanoma comes from a previous injury and not sun exposure.  I had previously cut this thumb twice that both times required stitches.  This is proof positive that, out of an abundance of caution,  I should just stop cooking,  

3.  I have surrounded myself with amazing people that bent over backwards to take care of me and my family.  My mom is a Rockstar!

4.  In reality, this was a painful inconvenience.  I was so very lucky that this didn't go very, very wrong.  

The Element of Danger

I have ten nieces and nephews.  They mean the world to me, and might as well be my own kids in the way I feel about them.  My 14 year old nephew has been reading my blog and has informed me that while he thinks it is okay, it needs an element of danger.  This one is for you, Andrew!

I am not an adrenaline junkie by any stretch of the imagination.  One of my major goals in life is to avoid the emergency room at all costs.  Typically the most dangerous thing I do is cooking and I have actually required stitches in the same thumb twice.  The two most dangerous things I have ever done were on my honeymoon. 

We went to Jamaica for our honeymoon.  My sister had warned against doing this as she had a bad experience on her honeymoon, but at that stage I would never listen to her.  We went to a Sandals Resort in Montego Bay.  One of the activities we did was to climb up Dunn's River Falls. 

It goes against every law of nature and physics to walk UP a waterfall.  First they made you wear special water shoes.  I should have turned back then.  I was forced to put my bare feet in wet, clammy shoes that had been worn by God knows how many people before me.  Bowling shoes make me shiver, these almost made me gag.  If we had not spent a ton of money on this there would be no way I would have done this.

Second, the rocks you had to walk across were really slippery and kind of sharp.  One of the ways they combated this was to have you hold the hand of the person ahead of you and behind you.  Dave, being the consummate gentleman that he always is, let me go first.  Either way I had to hold a stranger's hand, and as it has been documented many times before, I am a germaphobe.  We are in what amounts to be a third world country and from the looks of the people wandering around, hygiene was not top on some of these people's lists.  I have barely made it past the whole shoe thing and now I had to hold hands with a stranger all the way UP a waterfall. 

I am readying myself to do this, wondering how the brochure made this sound so fun when I was wearing pre-used water shoes, sweating in the hot Jamaican sun, holding strangers hands while climbing up slippery and sharp rocks.  I couldn't believe we had paid so much money to do this, and I couldn't really complain because I was the one that had suggested this activity.  I go to reach up to hold this guy's hand only to realize that he only has ONE ARM.  I kid you not, he only had one arm, and the other one, the one I was supposed to hold stopped at his elbow. 

What is a girl to do?  I was kind of wondering if God was smiling on me or laughing at me.  After making it to the top it was really fun and amazingly beautiful.  I am glad we did it, but I am sure that I will never go to Jamaica again.  I am equally sure that I would have rather been reading a book by the side of the pool or on the beach drinking one of the delicious orange flavored vodka drinks at one of the many bars at our resort.  I learned two things about myself that day. If something weird is going to happen, it will happen to me.  The second thing is that I don't care where I am in the world.  If there is the opportunity to sit and read a book in a peaceful setting, or the option to do something outside in either hot or cold temperatures, the book will always win.

Boa Constrictor Hose

When I was in college my sister hired me to be a temporary secretary at the place she worked.  Because I was going to be at the front desk, I was going to be the face of the company and I really wanted to make Ann proud.  I needed to be professionally dressed so I went to the store and picked out a pair of panty hose. This is where my near demise began.

Lets just say there is a difference between regular panty hose and active support panty hose.  I had picked up the first pair that was the color and size I needed without looking at the rest of the box.  BIG MISTAKE.  The first day I was there I wore them, and I thought they were tighter than the ones I usually got, but I really didn't give it much thought.  The second day I wore pants so there was no need for the hose. 

The third day is when it all started to go horribly wrong.  I wore another dress.  When I pulled the panty hose on, they felt strangely tighter than they had the first day I wore them.  I had rinsed them out but had never had hose shrink to that extent before and was sure they would stretch back out.  I went with my sister to work and started my day.  By about 9:00 my feet started to hurt.  By 10:00 I was getting an upset stomach, and by 11:30 I started to get light headed and went to Ann's office to tell her I was sick.  She asked me what was wrong and I tried to explain my symptoms.  She decided that I needed to eat.  We went to lunch but the problem seemed to get worse instead of better.   I was starting to think there was something really wrong with me.  Ann suggested that I lay down in her car for a little while to see if I just needed to put my head down.  I managed to drag myself back in and finish the day, sure that I was having some sort of medical crisis. 

We went back to Ann's apartment where I was staying for the week and I changed my clothes.  Immediately I felt better.  It was as if I was able to take a deep breath for the first time all day, and life was seeping back into me.  It was later that evening that I  found the container and saw they were active support.  I went out and asked Ann what active support meant.  It turns out that they are pressure stocking for people that have circulation problems or clots in their legs. 

I am now unable to wear anything tight on my stomach, and if it feels the least bit tight I start to get a panic attack.  I was so happy when it became socially acceptable to have bare legs.  If it is necessary to go through the torture of hose I will buy thigh highs, or I will completely cut the top band off of them which makes them slowly roll down and form an unsightly ring around my hips.  Control top is completely out of the question. 

I do believe I was scarred for life that week.  I thank God that I had Ann there to protect me from sure humiliation if anyone else in her office found out.  It was not the first time she was my protector and I suspect it won't the last.