Another round...

I got my biopsy results today--melanoma.  Near the same area where I had the surgery to remove melanoma nearly a year ago.  I was hoping it wasn't, of course, and tried powers of positive thinking to tell myself it wasn't cancer.  But think about it--once my doctor took the biopsy last Wednesday, the die was cast.  It either was or wasn't cancer at that point.  No subconscious thinking could change the outcome at that point.

Just as with the last time I got the call with the biopsy results, I could tell the test was positive, from the way it took them a while to get to the results.  I couldn't tell what exactly he said (other than "melanoma")--it was partly his accent, and perhaps partly that my mind was still focused on the word melanoma.  He did say it was in the early stage, and that I should have surgery as soon as possible.  But he didn't say it was "in situ" like the last time.  I think he gave some dimensions (I wouldn't understand that, anyway; the sizes are so small.  And he may have said stage 1.  But I'm not sure.  Probably.

I called the surgery center as soon as I got off the phone with the dermatologist's office, but they said I couldn't schedule the surgery until they received the report from my dermatologist.  This was at 12:30pm; by 3:00pm they still didn't have the report, so I called the dermatologist's office (the guy said "as soon as possible," after all).  He (same guy who gave me the results) said they were busy with patients and hadn't gotten to it.  So much for "as soon as possible".  But soon after I got off the phone, the surgery center called and said they had the report.  They said the first available surgery appointment was August 28--3 weeks from now.  That date actually works well with my schedule, but how do doctors define "as soon as possible"?  I told her I was OK with that date, but did it meet the ASAP definition.  She said yes.  Maybe I'll google and see what the definition of ASAP is when you have stage 1 melanoma.  As I said, at least the date works well with my schedule...