Sparky

Now aged 65 and healthy – born and raised and lived most of my life in Cape Town, South Africa, with (yes, I know, but you don’t think about these things when you’re a teenager) plenty of beach and sunburn (make that semi-cremation) episodes at that age. The melanoma in-situ occurred in the UK when I was 55, and the Dermo said at the time, ‘that’s the price you pay for living in a hot country and barbecuing yourself on the beach as a kid. We’ve caught this one, but your love affair with the sun is, from this moment, over.’ Lucky part of it was that I had gone to consult a dermo for a little black spot on my lower lip that I didn’t like the look of, and which turned out to be a (harmless) little thing called a venous lake. But the Dermo said ‘while you’re here, and considering you come from a hot place, let’s just look you over.’ And that is when the lesion was found on the middle of my back. It was pinkinsh-red, and not blue, brown or black. Had he not been so conscientious, I might have been in a very different position. Now, regarding the four they’s just taken off (excisional biopsies with 5mm margins by plastic surgeon to whom I was referred by Dermo here in Germany), I’m worried about just how reliable the biopsy outcome of ‘no melanoma’ (that’s what she told me yesterday) is.