Moley moley moley

Everyone remembers that scene from Austin Powers right? The one with the mole? Moley, moley, moley?! Too. Bloody. Funny.

Well, sometimes, it turns out, moles are not so funny. Sometimes they are cancerous and evil and scary.

So please, I beg you, get yours checked.

Cancer, even skin cancer is too big for me to talk to you about and even start to advise you on but I can tell you what happened to us.

S had a mole on his calf that ticked all of the A,B,C,D,E boxes (see below) and was sore to touch (one advantage of having an overly inquisitive toddler poking at you constantly, sometimes it hurts where it shouldn't). He went to the doctors and then the hospital and then into surgery all within about a fortnight. It was (can I get a whoop whoop for the past tense there, it's gone!) a melanoma. We are not out of the woods yet and there is another surgery ahead of us but, for now, the cancer is gone, because we found it early on in it's evil little life.

So have a look, a read and a wee inspection of your skin. Because you never know what you might find. It might just save your life, like our wee Will saved his Dads.

Things to look for...

• Asymmetry – Melanomas are likely to be irregular or asymmetrical. Ordinary moles are usually symmetrical (both halves look the same).
• Border – Melanomas are more likely to have an irregular border with jagged edges. Moles usually have a well-defined regular border.
• Colour – Melanomas tend to have more than one colour. They may have different shades like brown mixed with black, red, pink, white or a bluish tint. Moles are usually just one shade of brown.
• Diameter – Melanomas are usually more than 7mm across. Moles are normally no bigger than the blunt end of a pencil (about 6mm across).
• Evolving (changing) – Look for changes in the size, shape or colour of a mole.

See your doctor straight away if you have:

• any of the ABCDE signs
• any unusual marks on the skin
• a mole that is changing in size, shape or colour
• tingling or itching in a mole
• crusting or bleeding in a mole
• something growing under a nail or a new pigmented line in a nail.

The earlier melanoma is diagnosed and treated the more likely it is to be cured.

I got all the above information from the Macmillan website which is a fantastic charity and a very easy to use website.

So Go. Get naked. Check yourself out. Please.

Melodrama and Perspective

These are the two lessons I have learnt this week. Well, perspective is a lesson I have learnt, melodrama is just how I went about it.

I literally spent every day last week thinking I was going to be raising my very young children alone. I would frighten myself by realising I was daydreaming plans of how I would cope, where we would live, where I would work, who would watch the kids completely calmly. And it was this that would send me into fits of tears and panic. Not that I would have to do it, but that I was already planning it.

The surgery on Friday went well. The cancer was cut out and now we are awaiting further analysis to see how ferocious it is and if it is likely to have spread. The surgeon was fantastic and refused to tell us either way what he thought the prognosis without the evidence of the results was which was strangely reassuring.

And so since then there has been less melodrama and more perspective. We have talked a lot about what will happen on results day. About what is good news and what is bad news and what is somewhere in between. There have been less tears and more laughter. Less tension and more love.

Because you see, no matter what the news is next week, we now know what it feels like to think you are going to lose one another. To think you are going to miss out on the big things and the small things. To feel like you are going to raise children alone, or not see your children grow up.

And whilst I am not grateful or thankful for this experience and we quite frankly could have done without it, I am grateful for the perspective it has offered me. Us. I am so very appreciative of what I have today, of how loved I am and how much I love. And I really do value every minute we have together as a couple and as a family.