Moley Moley Mole

Jen's mole turned blue. Tucked under the jawline, it was barely noticeable among the other small moles and shadows thrown across her neck, but she saw it and asked me what I thought. While I don't know much, I have heard that moles randomly swapping shades of blue might not be the best thing, so I encouraged a doctor visit that she quickly scheduled.

I took last Friday off and we went to an appointment where they shaved the mole off the side of her neck and shipped it off to a lab. Yesterday, we get a call.

"This call is for Jennifer Merryman. You have been left a message in your secure voice mail box. Please call 1-800 blah blah blah for your results."

This is something new. You get a secure voice mail that you call and enter a code that was given to you at the time of your appointment. When the doctor gets the results, the receptionist calls and records a message for the patient. Jen's message went something like this:

"Hi Jennifer, this is Sally with Doctor Jenning's office. The results of your biopsy were received, and they were positive for Basal Cell Carcinoma. The doctor is going to want to see you soon, so please give us a call so we can schedule your next appointment. Have a great day."

We spent the rest of the morning laughing about what an odd job that must be, and how we would do it differently. "Good Morning, this is Sally with Doctor Jenning's office. The results of your biopsy were received and...well, honey I just don't even know how to say this. That mole was just ten different kinds of fucked up. I mean really, there are like twelve other kinds of cancer that are scared shitless of the stuff you have growing on your face. You best get your butt in here with a quickness."

Seriously, if you can't laugh at cancer, what can you laugh at?

And, to be fair, calling it cancer at all is an insult to the invasive horrible shit that other people have to go through. It's more like cancerish. They'll cut it off, she'll have a couple of stitches, and we'll just have to be more careful about watching for more of the same. It's a bit of a freak out the moment you hear the word cancer at first, but we're still pretty flippant about the whole thing. I imagine that will change closer to her next appointment, but it's how we deal with stuff round these parts. We poke inappropriate fun at the issue until it's actually time to get down to business.

So, in the meantime, I'll make fun of her scar by calling it her "cancer dimple" and she'll finish every outlandish inconvenient (to me) request with "But I have cancer!" We're very lucky actually. If you had to pick from a list of cancers from a menu, this is the one you would choose. We'll take it. Then, we'll get rid of it.