Take care of the skin you're in - my experience with skin cancer. PT 2

So, this is the follow up to my previous post regarding malignant melanoma. I had the original problem mole excised and was referred to the specialist Dermatologist after the melanoma diagnosis.

Dr Ikramullah Al Nasir at the Dermacare Skin Centre, would be taking care of me from now on. He explained, that because of the diagnosis, he needed to excise more tissue for biopsy to see if the cancerous cells had spread away from the mole. Malignant melanoma is one of the fastest spreading, most aggressive kind of cancers there is, so you really can't afford to mess about with it and early detection and treatment is key. The Dr said that in his experience, of over 20 years, the stage we'd caught it at was very early and so the prognosis looked good.

I wasn't quite prepared for how much extra tissue was required to be taken out. I made the mistake of taking a peak during the procedure and I really wish I hadn't. In the end the incision was just shy of 4 inches long and quite deep into the layers of the dermis, meaning that I needed internal as well as external stitches.

The picture looks quite horrific, when you consider the size of the original mole and how much tissue has now been removed.

The next step is to wait for the biopsy results. I would ask that everyone who has moles, get them checked every year without fail. It's so important and could save your life.