I Feel Bad for My Skin: A Sort-of Skin Cancer Story

I recently learned that I will need surgery to remove excess skin around a mole that tested as moderately abnormal.

That’s a mouthful.

It’d be easier to say I have skin cancer.

Except I don’t. I was told it was moderately abnormal. So potential skin cancer.

It’s at times like this that I wonder if modern medicine has gone too far. Do we really have to address abnormal if it’s not cancer? Can we not just watch and wait. Is excising my skin truly necessary?

My mother died from ovarian cancer. My grandfather died from two types of blood cancer. My grandmother is currently dying from a blood cancer. My father had prostate cancer.

Cancer seems to be in the blood (literally and figuratively).

So I’ll acquiesce to the medical model.

But I do feel bad for my skin.

Two weeks ago I had the mole removed.

It was a flat mole, almost like brown alcohol ink had been dropped on my skin.

It was on my boob, about an inch above my nipple. No one saw it, other than the time I yanked down my shirt to ask my sister, a nurse, if it was normal.

When I went to the dermatologist for a skin exam, she recommended we remove it.

She was amazing. She had me numb the area with an ice pack and used a vibrator while she gave me shots. It was the least…