Greg Campion@gregorycampion
How a routine skin exam may have just saved my life
A few years ago, I started seeing the dermatologist once a year for a preventative full-body skin exam.
I'm pretty fair-skinned and my doc had recommended it... so I decided the inconvenience was probably worth it.
The exam is generally quick and painless - in and out in about 30 minutes.
Last year, the doc saw something a little weird. She sliced a little bit of it off my back, had it biopsied, and it came back negative. No probs. Just had to wear a Band-Aid for a week.
This year, slightly different story. Same deal - she saw something that looked a little out of the ordinary, sliced a tiny piece of it off, had it biopsied and then... I got a call.
A "do you have time to discuss something?" type of call.
Uh-oh. She explained that the results of the biopsy showed that the skin irregularity on my back was a malignant melanoma.
That's another word for skin cancer. And the not-so-great kind. The kind that spreads. And can be very dangerous if not caught early. Ugh. Gut punch.
I have to be honest, that kind of freaked me out. Now, the good news (in my mind) was that my doc wasn't freaking out, so that made me feel better. She did, however, make it clear that the next step was to get me into see a surgical oncologist, ASAP.
So... about six weeks ago, I found myself sitting in the Levine's Cancer Center here in Charlotte asking about a thousand questions to the surgical oncologist who was assessing my situation.
He explained to me how melanomas work. Basically, they grow inward, so the deeper yours goes, the worse off you are. If you don't catch it early enough, the melanoma can spread to the nearest lymph node, which in my case would be in my armpit.
Once it gets there, things get a bit more complicated. The treatment gets much more intense and invasive and the prognosis gets worse.
Fortunately, mine was caught early. I was able to schedule a procedure to have the melanoma removed about a week later.
The procedure itself wasn't too bad. Basically, I had to lie on my stomach for 30 minutes while the doc cut a 6-inch incision in my back, dug out the melanoma and the area around it, and then stitched me back up.
Sorry to be graphic but it wasn't too bad all things considered. The worst part was getting the lidocaine (local anesthesia) shot into my back which felt like 10 consecutive bee stings.
Last week, I went back to get my stitches out and got the good news. The lab work came back and the cancer is gone. I'm clear. Phew.
That was a freaky experience, which should leave me with a fairly minor scar but hopefully not much else.
What did I learn? Two things in particular:
1. Get screened -- If I wasn't already getting preventative screens, I have no idea when this thing would have been found. Being on my back, I couldn't see it. And my understanding is that probably only a trained eye would have picked it out. Very scary. I have to get screened 2x/year from now on but that feels like a very small price to pay.
2. Be careful in the sun -- I've gotten quite a few sunburns in my life. I play golf and coach baseball and live in North Carolina so I get a lot of sun exposure. I'm also probably influenced by all the 'bro science' on here preaching things like 'sun, steel, and steak.' But I will be taking my own sun exposure much more seriously from now on. I'm not going to hide from it but I will be much more vigilant about sunscreen including applying both full body and facial moisturizer with SPF everyday as soon as I get out of the shower.
I'm a huge proponent of preventative screening. And I guess, at 45, I'm at the age where that sort of thing becomes of greater interest. In fact, I recently wrote an article about how Peter Attia's Outlive has heavily influenced my thinking (and actions) in this area.
So if you're like me and you're interested in getting ahead of things like heart issues or colon cancer (get a colonoscopy at 40!), then I'd add routine skin exams to your list.
They might just save your life.
