Well, hello again. It's been quite a long time since the last blog entry and there have been several reasons for this. Life has had much in store for me over the past few weeks, both good and bad. I honestly haven't had the time or concentration required for blogging, but today I suddenly felt like writing, so here it is! To avoid posting one super-long blog (yes, even longer than this one!) I've decided to divide it into three parts, which I will post over the next few days.
I guess that I'd better start with the most important thing that has happened over the past few weeks.
I'm very sad to say that my lovely boyfriend Leon has been diagnosed with skin cancer.
Some of you (very few) will know about this already, and if you follow me on twitter you may remember that I mentioned he'd been in hospital and had an operation while I was in Paris in July, but I didn't say why. So this is the first time I'm announcing publicly what has been happening.
I've asked Leon whether it's ok to tell you about this, and he was fine with the idea. He's very keen to get the word out about this horrible disease, because it has come as a total shock to us.....I guess I should just start from the beginning.
Most of you are already aware of the fact that Leon lives in Paris (he's American, not French, to confuse matters further!) and that I spend most of my time in the UK with frequent trips to Paris to be with him. In June, we went to London to spend a couple of nights in a hotel to belatedly celebrate my birthday. During this trip I noticed a huge brown mark on his back. When I first saw it he was across the room, so I told him to come over to me so that I could have a closer look. I was truly alarmed by what I could see. What had previously been a birth mark (just flat and brown and non-scary) had suddenly become a huge mole in varying shades of brown, with a ragged border. I didn't want to scare him, but the moment I saw it the words 'malignant melanoma' popped into my brain like a flashing neon sign. It had all of the warning signs: rapid growth, ragged border, uneven colour, and it was much, much bigger than a normal mole. He was shocked, because he didn't know he had anything there - as it turns out, he didn't even know about the original birth mark!
The reason for this is because it's on his back, near the shoulder blade, but almost in the centre of his back (if that makes sense) - one of the few places you can't see yourself without the aid of two mirrors. And let's be honest, how many of us stand in front of the mirror naked whilst holding another mirror?
Ok, I do sometimes, but I'm like that. Leon is normal, and he doesn't. ;)
Anyway, as you can probably understand, we spent a lot of our time in London worrying about it and discussing it. Trying to make ourselves feel better ("it's probably nothing") but all the time I had a feeling it was something to worry about. Leon promised he'd see a doctor as soon as he returned to Paris in a couple of days.
I need to cut this long story short, as I'm seriously rambling.
So, he goes to the doctor - the doc says he thinks it is probably not too much to worry about, but recommends that Leon sees a specialist. A few days later he has an appointment with an dermatologist. Expert number 1 looks at the growth and is unsure and so calls in expert number 2. Expert number 2 examines the mole for a long time while discussing it with his colleague. They both decide that they are almost certain that it's a form of skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma. It sounds scary but BCC is actually a 'safer' form of skin cancer - it's generally slow-growing, and importantly, localised, meaning that it doesn't tend to spread beyond the skin growth to other parts of the body. Leon tells me of their diagnosis on the phone, as I'm in the UK at this point. All I keep saying to him (and yes, I was driving him crazy) was, "But how can they say this, it looks nothing like a classic BCC and everything like a malignant melanoma! Did you tell them that it has grown really quickly? BCC grows slowly!" (By this point I'd done a lot of research).
From the very start, I had a feeling that the doctors were wrong. I should have been relieved at their diagnosis, but all I could feel was a sense of rising panic. Leon saw another doctor, the surgeon who was going to remove the growth. As soon as he saw it, he said it was too large to remove at his clinic - which was the initial plan - and he told Leon that he would have to go into hospital and have it removed under general anesthetic. He used a pen to mark the area of skin they were going to cut from Leon's back. It was really quite large as they like to take a lot of surrounding skin, to be sure. This doctor also stated that he thought it was BCC and not MM - in other words, the less dangerous form of cancer.
Let's skip to the part where Leon has the growth removed in July, a month after seeing the first doctor (they initially wanted to leave the operation until August and if Leon hadn't been so concerned, that's what would have happened). He came out of hospital with a large row of stitches on his back, feeling very sore and, quite rightly, a little sorry for himself. A nurse came in to change the bandages every day for a few days after the operation. Leon went on holiday with his son to rural France and I returned to England to get on with my work.
Two and a half weeks later and Leon is back in Paris, where he receives a call from the doctor. They have analysed the growth and the area of skin they removed, and it turns out that he has malignant melanoma, not basal cell carcinoma as four doctors had previously diagnosed.
My instinct about the growth turned out to be right all along. I never understood why the doctors thought it was BCC, when it appeared to have none of the signs of that particular type of cancer. But I just assumed they knew something I didn't.
I totally freaked out when I heard this news - malignant melanoma is the most dangerous form of skin cancer, and if left unchecked for too long, can quickly spread to other parts of the body. I felt sick and shaky, and initially mad as hell at the doctors - I still find it hard to grasp that four separate doctors could all get it wrong. And the fact that they were prepared to leave the first operation until August, meaning that if we had gone along with this, Leon would probably still be walking around with a cancerous growth on his back even now, giving it more time to develop and spread. Everything I've read about MM states that it needs to be removed as soon as possible.
Anyway, aside from that, he has now seen another doctor who went through the results of the analysis with him in incredible detail. At the moment it looks positive, as they couldn't find any sign of cancer in the surrounding skin and apparently the mole itself had a depth of just 0.6mm. Anything up to 1mm is considered quite safe apparently, as it hasn't had time to grow into the skin and the tissue below. So all of this sounds good. They will be performing a second operation later this month to remove even more skin from the surrounding area - they do this in cases of malignant melanoma just to be totally sure they have removed it all. Then I believe they're doing more tests to check that it hasn't spread anywhere else, but the doctor says, judging by the results, that this scenario would be unlikely. He said in all likelihood Leon is very lucky because it seems to have been caught at an early stage. He also said that one of the good points of living with a woman is that they are very observant and are apparently often the first to notice if anything is wrong with their man! So we are cautiously hopeful at the moment, but we're not totally 'out of the woods' yet.
One thing we both want to say to EVERYONE reading this is to please check your body on a regular basis. In fact, do it now while you're thinking about it. Get your partner, or a friend, or your family, to check the parts of your body you can't see. If you see anything suspicious, please go to the doctor as soon as possible. Don't leave it thinking it will go away, as so often time is the most important factor in successfully treating skin cancer.
Remember, Leon was walking around with a malignant melanoma on his back and he didn't even know about it until I pointed it out. Had I not seen it, he probably wouldn't have noticed it until it started itching or bleeding - at which point it may have been at an advanced stage. I don't want to scare anyone, but people die from this (Leon recently lost a cousin in Los Angeles to skin cancer), so please keep an eye on your bodies, and those of your family or partner. Check yourself every month or two, and if you see any changes go straight to the doctor. Here's a good site for finding out more information on skin cancers of all types: The Skin Cancer Foundation
Please keep Leon in your thoughts and prayers, and let's all hope that this incredibly stressful situation has a positive and happy outcome.
Natasha x
