Monday, March 09, 2015

The mole and me

When the increase in the number of skin cancers was first beginning to hit the headlines there were various campaigns to make people aware and one of the suggestions was: if you spot a new mole go and see the doctor. I said then and I say now, if I went to see the doctor for each new mole I'd be living in the surgery.

But I do have one on my shoulder that was getting big so I thought I'd better check it out. The doctor said it was a something or other that comes with, he hesitated, years. A less obvious way of saying, 'You're getting old, woman.' He thought it was two that had been growing close together and had merged.

I can see it now. 

One morning Husband will wake and turn over expecting to see the woman he has woken up next to for the last umpteen years and in her place will be one giant mole. Rather like the hero of The Metamorphosis who awakes to find he has turned into a cockroach. Franz Kafka's story is said to be one of the most important works of the twentieth century so I could yet be a famous author/character.



P.S. I remembered what the doctor called it: seborrheic keratosis or as it says on google, senile warts. I'm glad he didn't say that.

P.P.S. I have my mammogram in Tesco's car park on Wednesday. I just hope it's not a self-scanning system.


4 comments:

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

Can't now rid myself of the self-scanning mammogram image ...
(Ours was parked in a supermarket car park this time , too . Perhaps they think it seems more accessible to women ? )

nick said...

Of course the mammogram might not work if there's no barcode.

Ole Phat Stu said...

Seborrheic keratosis ? Been there, have those, but one turned out to be malevolent, so I had to get a 2-thumbnail size piece cut out of my left thigh :-(

Tip 4 U : I take a naked selfie every quarter, so I can compare the sizes (of the black spots) over time.

Liz Hinds said...

It's odd, sonata, because we have a breast test centre in Swansea and that's where I've been in the past. I guess it's being over-used.

Do you think i should make my own, Nick?

The doctor measured this one and said to go back in a few months, stu.