The other day I was in the bathroom after a shower and looked in the mirror and saw an odd freckle that I swear I had never seen before under my right arm. I mean it’s not a place that I look at often, so I have no idea how long it’s been there, but the thing was very dark, and just just looked weird. Certainly not like my other freckles. If you are asking why I am using the word freckle instead of mole, the answer is because it wasn’t raised, and I figure a mole is raised. I have never gotten a full body scan to look at my moles/freckles, so after being motivated from a friend I decided it was time to get it done. I have insurance, and my piece of mine is certainly worth the $40. Boy was I lucky I went!

 I am kind of a hypochondriac, and showed my odd freckle to The Captain who pretty much told me that it was probably fine. I didn’t believe him so I went online and looked at those pictures that show you what freckles/moles are bad. I really didn’t see anything like my freckle. See the problem with easily thinking something is wrong with you is that you begin to second guess yourself. You begin thinking you are crazy and that you are over reacting. So I kind of put it out of my mind. Then the following day a friend of mine called to tell me about a weird mole that she was having checked, and I thought to myself…self….you really should just go to the dermatologist.

(TMI warning ahead!) This may sound gross, but I have some warts on my knee that I have been dying to get burned off, but every winter they kind of go away and I forget about them…and then BAM the summer comes and they are all gross. By then I don’t want red blistery burned off warts to be scene on my legs so I wait till the winter…which then in turn they go away and I forget about them again. Do you see the cycle? I digress…so I decided to use the warts as my main reason for going to the dermatologist, and my odd freckle as a secondary reason. If anything it would be good to get everything looked at. I honestly didn’t think I had anything to worry about.

So I get to the dermatologist and he looks at my odd freckle, and stops and stares…My heart skips a beat. He then tells me that he thinks it is nothing, but would like to biopsy it anyway. After that I was very scared. Biopsy?? What did that entail? I am TERRIFIED of needles and I am the biggest baby. He told me he had to give me a local anesthetic, and then he would cut it off. OUCH! ok…it really wasn’t that bad, but it did hurt. He then checked everything else, said the rest look fine and proceeded to burn off my warts (which hurt too).

About a week later the phone rings and I see its the doctors office. I was pretty surprised when it was the doctor himself calling me. Normally I feel the nurses call, so I was on alarm right away. Turns out my odd freckle really was something to worry about! I can’t remember what he called for the life of me (probably better since I totally would’ve googled it), but it was a precancerous freckle, and I needed to have more removed to make sure they get it all. OUCH! He told me not to panic, that it’s good we caught it early. Don’t panic?? Really? You just used the word CANCER in a sentence! Luckily I just spoke to a friend a few nights before who said she had like 3 precancerous moles removed and it really isn’t a big deal…so I had that in my mind. But still…it’s scary.

I remind myself how lucky I am that this time I decided to get it checked out. I like to think it’s God looking out for me.  Who knows what would have happened had I waited? Now I have to go back and set a time to get more removed. It stinks because it’s right where my bra strap is under my arm, so it really hurts and rubs. (I know I am such a baby) But it must be done…I must be brave. My little dark freckle went from being odd, to precancerous….now that is scary.

So I have to send out a little PSA here…Get your moles/freckles checked regularly! You never know!