Hi Mouse,

It's natural to be very anxious but firstly, it's good that you have an appointment through quickly so that you aren't left worrying for too long.

Secondly, they won't be giving you a diagnosis because they can't do that from a photo, or from looking at with the naked eye or through a dermatascope. What they will do at the appointment is examine the mole through the dermatascope to see if there are any usual cell changes. If there aren't, your mole is fine. If there are, they will advise the mole is removed under local anaesthetic as a day patient at a future date. This will be sent for a biopsy & this is the 100% way of knowing if the mole is malignant or not.

75% of patients referred to dermatology find that their mole/lesion was not cancerous (benign) or was dysplastic (also known as atypical or precancerous). Atypical moles look dodgy but have been caught before the cells turn malignant. Many of the 75% find that their moles are dysplastic so they've been caught early. I've had 7 moles removed over the years, one was melanoma, 2 were dysplastic the rest were benign. My brother, niece & nephew between them have had 5 dysplastic moles removed. If it is melanoma, there is a very good chance it's been caught early & will be successfully treated with surgeries so try not to think about worse case scenarios. 

I know it's hard but try to distract yourself this week. Don't Google. Take someone with you if your anxiety is very high as you may miss something the consultant explains, otherwise take notes. Good luck and please let us know how you get on,

Angie (Stage 3 melanoma patient since 2009)