Not What I Really Wanted

Continuing the documentation of the fulfillment of the "anything I wanted" list from the first of the year:

I would have several skin spots checked/removed

So after the big run in June, I scheduled an appointment with a dermatologist in the big city.  And I arrived at my appointment with a mental list of all the spots that needed looked at.  One on my back, one on my hip, one on my knee.  Some of them have been around for a while, one was relatively new. Almost all of them met some of the criteria for skin cancer.  On particularly imaginative days I could convince myself they were all melanomas.  Which is why I waited until after the big race to see the doctor. (I didn't want my chemo treatments interfering with my training.)  I was prepared to have them removed.  The good doctor dismissed my concerns.  Evidently old women just grow big ugly brown spots that have odd medical names that old women can't remember and that are nothing to be concerned about.  The young doctor was not concerned.  He did not remove them.  

He did have a concern about a bump that was growing in the middle of my birthmark.  Dermatologists are always interested in my birthmark.  They have offered to remove the whole thing.  The good young doctor thought it wise to remove the bump in the middle of my birthmark.  So he cut it out, leaving a big hole in the middle of my birthmark.  A big white hole.  I was not prepared for this.  I've always been kind of attached to my birthmark.  To have a big chunk of it missing made me sad.  To have a big white scar in the middle of it a little sadder.  (I contemplated painting it green.) 

But it has healed and filled in and just this week I noticed that it is growing new brown skin on top. This makes me happy.  The pathology report was negative.  This makes me happier.