Hi,

I'm sorry to hear you've been diagnosed with melanoma, especially when you are young & have a baby. I know several people who have been in the same position and their melanoma was found while it was still early stage so they were successfully treated. Several, in fact, are now grandparents so although it's natural to panic and think it's a done deal, it really isn't. Treatment for melanoma is having great success, especially when found early, so try not to focus too far ahead just yet. Once you know your stage you will have a treatment plan - if it's been caught early enough you may not need any further treatment. Have they told you what the depth of your mole was? This will give you an unconfirmed stage which will later be confirmed after further surgery - a wide local excision and a sentinel lymph node biopsy (only undertaken if the depth was over 0.8mm or 1mm). 

Angie (Stage 3 melanoma patient since 2009)

Thank you so much for your reply. It’s putting into perspective and easing those worries I’ve been having and nice to hear success stories. They haven’t given me many details, it’s all been a bit of a whirlwind if I’m honest from initial dermatologist appointment to now. I’ve got an appointment on Friday to go through treatment options and talk about stages. Mine wasn’t a mole so I’ve had it for a while however with recent changes to it made me get it checked. It’s more of a white scar looking abnormality which is about 15mm long by my eye so never thought skin cancer could be a white mark, until now. I assume they’ll tell me depths and bits more on Friday. I’m a planner so being in limbo is what’s causing the panic, once I have that plan in place I will be able to process more so thank you for talking through the process, it’s helped massively as I was relying on google (which has not helped the panic) for next steps whilst waiting.