Tell HN: Yesterday I found out I have skin cancer
This comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43918368 however, just jumped off the screen at me:
"My skin, with the help of the sun, has twice tried to -KILL- me."
For whatever reason, that specific phrasing just stopped me in my tracks and stuck with me a few days. I even bookmarked it.
I have lived in Southern California and now Arizona for close to twenty years, and like an idiot I've never taken sun protection seriously. I noticed some new spots on my face over the past few years, and just chalked it up to aging or dry skin from the desert climate. But after reading that comment and thinking about the possibility of those spots being out to murder me, I finally decided to visit the dermatologist for the first time in my life.
The dermatologist took two biopsies and sent them off to the lab. Yesterday, I got the results. One negative, one positive for squamous cell carcinoma. My skin is trying to kill me!
At my followup appointment this morning, my dermatologist gave me the news that I am lucky this time, because it is "in situ", localized with no evidence of spreading, and 99% curable with outpatient surgery. This was obviously a wave of relief after basically no sleep last night, thinking up how I need to write my last will.
Driving home, I replayed the last 23 days, and how incredibly lucky I was to read that comment here on HN that compelled me to go get checked.
So two things:
1. Thank you to this community, and especially to the commenter who inadvertently potentially saved my life.
2. Go visit your dermatologist! Don't wait, be proactive, and protect your skin when you're outside!