I recently been biopsied, and melanoma was found. I'm going to have the lesion (can you believe the word comes up in this very different context?) removed on Wednesday.
The biopsy was not painful (three sites, one leg, two opposite shoulders) but I felt faint when they injected the numbing solution at the third site (shin). When they finished and covered the now deflated liquid-filled lesion, I think if I were sitting up for that I might have passed out, but as I was already lying down I just felt really weird for about fifteen minutes. Ice pack on my forehead and behind my neck helped a lot.
Why would that have happened, lying down, and not in any real pain (I love it when they say "this will sting for a minute" ... it's nothing compared to the burning for 20 minutes after Copaxone injections)?
Two of the sites are basal carcinoma (not serious) and only one is melanoma. They'll remove that one first, and schedule me at a later date for the two others.
Of course, I went looking for a connection between MS and Melanoma. The only thing I found was a link between Melanoma and Tysabri and Fingolimod, neither of which I'd ever taken.
I am fair skinned, blue eyed, and lived near the ocean and spent a lot of time at the beach as a child. So I guess it was inevitable (which flies in the face of MS people not having enough sunlight.)
I'm pretty ticked off about this right now. There is nothing rational about having MS and Melanoma ... is there? I've hidden from the sun ever since heat sensitivity set in in my twenties. Really not happy about this. Yes, I know. Melanoma happens in childhood but shows its ugly face much (in my case much much) later. Crummy.
The biopsy was not painful (three sites, one leg, two opposite shoulders) but I felt faint when they injected the numbing solution at the third site (shin). When they finished and covered the now deflated liquid-filled lesion, I think if I were sitting up for that I might have passed out, but as I was already lying down I just felt really weird for about fifteen minutes. Ice pack on my forehead and behind my neck helped a lot.
Why would that have happened, lying down, and not in any real pain (I love it when they say "this will sting for a minute" ... it's nothing compared to the burning for 20 minutes after Copaxone injections)?
Two of the sites are basal carcinoma (not serious) and only one is melanoma. They'll remove that one first, and schedule me at a later date for the two others.
Of course, I went looking for a connection between MS and Melanoma. The only thing I found was a link between Melanoma and Tysabri and Fingolimod, neither of which I'd ever taken.
I am fair skinned, blue eyed, and lived near the ocean and spent a lot of time at the beach as a child. So I guess it was inevitable (which flies in the face of MS people not having enough sunlight.)
I'm pretty ticked off about this right now. There is nothing rational about having MS and Melanoma ... is there? I've hidden from the sun ever since heat sensitivity set in in my twenties. Really not happy about this. Yes, I know. Melanoma happens in childhood but shows its ugly face much (in my case much much) later. Crummy.
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