{"id":9,"date":"2008-06-18T22:24:30","date_gmt":"2008-06-19T05:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/?p=9"},"modified":"2008-06-18T23:09:38","modified_gmt":"2008-06-19T06:09:38","slug":"diagnosis-invasive-malignant-melanoma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/?p=9","title":{"rendered":"Diagnosis: Invasive Malignant Melanoma"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am writing this to help me remember what has happened to me. One of the most amazing things about trauma is its ability to erase memory.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure it is a Darwinian survival mechanism.\u00c2\u00a0 If you dwell too much on terrible things that have been done to you, you will never be whole again.<\/em><\/p>\n

But these four months have changed so much about me that if I do not reckon with what has happened to me I might not understand whom I have become<\/em><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

On February 22nd, 2008 I received my diagnosis of Invasive Malignant Melanoma, the bad kind of skin cancer.<\/p>\n

It was snowing out.<\/p>\n

I left my dermatologist and trudged through the greying snow berms of TriBeCa to the offices of a fancy non-for-profit art organization for a meeting about their website.\u00c2\u00a0 They have a big website that had a lot of problems, and they wanted my web design collaborator and I to redo it.\u00c2\u00a0 Or at least tell them how we would, and how much it would cost.<\/p>\n

Straight out of the drs appt I walked into this business meeting for the largest site I had ever bid on, and totally rocked the meeting.\u00c2\u00a0 I was totally on point.\u00c2\u00a0 I answered every question the right way.\u00c2\u00a0 I dropped all the right references.\u00c2\u00a0 Made them totally reassured about the right things.\u00c2\u00a0 And they had no qualms when we told them it was going to cost $100-125K for their site redesign.<\/p>\n

Two weeks later we found out the director wanted us to do it, but their board wanted to go w\/ some other more mainstream “firm.”\u00c2\u00a0 While it was dissapointing, it was a blessing in disguise.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I had Melanoma.<\/p>\n

So despite my diagnosis, I held it together.\u00c2\u00a0 I rode the train back uptown with my collaborator, got off at the same stop, but turned in different directions, as he went back to his appartment, and I went to the studio.<\/p>\n

I held it together until I arrived at the studio.\u00c2\u00a0 then i fell apart.<\/p>\n

I walked in, stunned, and SL immediately asked me what happened.\u00c2\u00a0 “Was Dallas that bad?” referring to a conference I had been at the previous three days.\u00c2\u00a0 And I told him.\u00c2\u00a0 He was the first person I told.\u00c2\u00a0 I think I said “I don’t even know how to say this… I was just told I have Melanoma.”\u00c2\u00a0 He made some perfect jokes about cancer that I forget – he has a great way of using humor as a healing mechanism.\u00c2\u00a0 And told me that his wife’s mother was diagnosed with Melanoma twenty years ago, and is still alive and well.<\/p>\n

I sat down and wrote this email to my parents, my brother S, my roommate P, my good friend X and the woman I was seeing K:<\/p>\n

i’ve been having a rly shitty 36hrs.<\/p>\n

my flight was cancelled out of dallas.\u00c2\u00a0 i had to sprint through the airport in houston.\u00c2\u00a0 this time i made the flight, and when i sat down in my seat, the phone rang.\u00c2\u00a0 it was my dermatologist’s assistant asking me to come in as soon as possible to speak w\/ the derm about the lab results from the supposed blood blister he removed on my right calf.\u00c2\u00a0 i asked him to specify, but he said that the dr wanted to speak to me in person.<\/p>\n

so i spent much of the flight having horrific visions of me as a chemo patient.\u00c2\u00a0 at the same time knowing that was really fatalistic for skin cancer.\u00c2\u00a0 but also knowing that i am not stupid, and that the results were most likely skin cancer.<\/p>\n

and then when i got off the plane, i got a msg from my lawyer saying that the condo plan was going to be approved in the next day or so.\u00c2\u00a0 He had been trading phone calls with the atty gnrl to slow it down two or three days so as to make it go past march 1st, but that was not going to be possible.\u00c2\u00a0 to remind, march 1st is the day after which i am on a new lease in the apt w\/o J on it.\u00c2\u00a0 this is significant, b\/c it reduces her claim to a right to purchase the apt.<\/p>\n

great, right?\u00c2\u00a0 double whammy.\u00c2\u00a0 spent the evening in a daze.\u00c2\u00a0 not sure whether to email about everything, or not.\u00c2\u00a0 whether to talk about the fear of cancer, or not…<\/p>\n

yeah, so went into the dr today. yeah, so it was a malignant melanoma.\u00c2\u00a0 “i have cancer.”\u00c2\u00a0 weird, right?<\/p>\n

it was “Clarks Level 3” of 5.\u00c2\u00a0 The depth was 1.88mm. Less than 1mm lymph node biopsy is not needed.\u00c2\u00a0 More than 3mm, and you go straight to chemo.\u00c2\u00a0 There was no ulceration, which means that it didn’t break the upper reaches of the skin, or something like that, which it has to do to spread to the lymph nodes.\u00c2\u00a0 So, it could be worse, could be better.<\/p>\n

i have apt on monday w\/ melanoma specialist who will excise a moderate sized chunk of my right calf, and send me to a different specialist who will biopsy my lymph nodes. if the sentinel nodes (back of knee, groin) are clear, then i watch carefully for two years and am a new man.\u00c2\u00a0 if they are not clear, then there is “other stuff.”<\/p>\n

at one point i asked him whether i was going to die.\u00c2\u00a0 it is weird to ask that question.\u00c2\u00a0 he said that people do die from this, but that it was unlikely in my case, and that regardless it was too soon to speak about percentages and outcomes. i have to wait for results from lymph node biopsy.<\/p>\n

so here i am at the studio.<\/p>\n

i just arrived.<\/p>\n

im ready to go home.<\/p>\n

i haven’t cried yet, but it will happen.\u00c2\u00a0 still a little shell shocked.<\/p>\n

m<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am writing this to help me remember what has happened to me. One of the most amazing things about trauma is its ability to erase memory.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure it is a Darwinian survival mechanism.\u00c2\u00a0 If you dwell too much on terrible things that have been done to you, you will never be whole again. … Continue reading Diagnosis: Invasive Malignant Melanoma<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[24,21,20,23,22],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-backstory","tag-apartment","tag-denial","tag-diagnosis","tag-fear","tag-telling-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}