Hi,

I know that this is sending you off in a tail spin & that's quite natural because you don't know how long you've had this mole. A similar thing happened to me. I was diagnosed with melanoma on my shin & because of this I've had 6 other suspicious moles removed over the years. Whilst on the operating table for a mole removal from my back, the surgeon spotted a mole on the sole of my foot & asked how long it had been there. I wasn't even aware of it, never having checked the soles of my feet. They wanted to remove it there & then but said it would be too much with the back excision so 2 weeks later I returned for the mole on my foot removing. In that 2 weeks I panicked - I already had melanoma but I thought it had spread & that the mole on my foot could have been the precursor to the shin mole & could have been there years. 

The outcome - it was absolutely fine! The location, and the fact I was a melanoma patient, were the only reasons for them wanting to remove it.

It's the not knowing it was there & the guilt of not knowing that eats you up. So you need to take a deep breath and explain to yourself that, if it was malignant & had been so for a long time, you would have known about it because you would have displayed several unpleasant symptoms by now! 

The dermatologist, like all skin experts, is just erring on the side of caution because of the location of the mole. There is a 75% chance that it's benign but they have to remove it to be on the safe side. If it does come back positive for malignancy, there is still a very good chance it has been caught before it could grow deep enough to cause any future problems and if it is deep, there are now treatments that are showing great results for melanoma patients. So it's not game over by any means. 

Try to take this one step at a time & don't jump to the future 'what if?' because you can't affect what you don't know about! Don't Google, it's old information & doesn't reflect the current landscape of melanoma treatment. Keep yourself busy & distracted and your mole will be history very soon. 

Good luck and please let us know how you get on,

Angie (melanoma patient)

Hi Angie,

Thank you so so much for your reply and very reassuring words, I've seen your replies on a few other relevant threads and your info and kind words are undoubtedly invaluable to so many of us.

Your message meant a lot and certainly calmed me down. It'll be approx 6 weeks, according to dermatologist, before I have it removed so I'm taking comfort in the idea that perhaps if she felt it was in anyway sinister and the fact I've no idea how long it's there, she'd have pushed for it to be a bit more urgent. She said she wasn't very concerned but me being me, I take that with a pinch of salt.

Thanks so much again and I'll be sure to post any progress!

A

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