You may not control all of the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

Maya Angelou

Being a medical anomaly patiently waiting for my news of death, I tried everyday to make someone smile. Happiness for others is a very nice distraction I thought often. My ego had taken a beating, my life had taken a beating.

As with most medical adventures, especially in the Rochester area, one appointment usually leads to many more because they want to be absolutely sure you are being cared for in the best way possible. Mine wasn’t any different, all of my blood issues led me to a hematologist, who led me to a GI doctor, who led me to a ENT doctor, who led me to etc.. I found that as I waited for that next blood check up like waiting for my own execution, the only thing that would bring me comfort is going to appointments that made me feel “normal”. These appointments included the dentist (always had pretty decent teeth), the ultrasound appointments (surprisingly! The only reason for this was they always admired my veins and arteries), and what I hoped would be the dermatologist as well.

I had for a very long time wanted to get my skin checked throughout college because I did know that I had a lot of moles on my skin, and I was smart enough to know that as I aged especially these could become troublesome. Even though at the time I didn’t think I would be living another year, I still thought some comforting news from the doctor would help me get rid of the “gonna-die” edge. I learned a very important lesson that day… Sometimes it is better to leave stones unturned if you handle stress like I do.

That being said, I am a HUGE advocate for knowing your body. Our bodies our wonderfully crafted puzzles working with outstanding barrages of parts, they are bound to make mistakes. If you wont look after you and advocate for your health, who will? Sadly, all of those intricate parts that make up you wont, they rely on you (the whole). If you are ever curious and want to know the crazy intricate inner-workings of the body I urge you to take a genetics course. Our bodies are marvels. Life is a crazy happenstance and the mechanisms our bodies have to prevent deadly disease happening are insane. With as much proofreading our bodies have to do in our genome, a mistake is bound to happen often. These mistakes, or mutations, don’t always cause catastrophic failure, but they can. That is why life is precious. That is why life is fleeting. We cant predict when our bodies will make that mistake that kills us. All we can do is make the other bodies in our community smile a bit more and hope for small miracles in life. Those miracles make up your story. Your brief moment, we call life. I digress.

I made an appointment to the dermatologist. To put a timeline on things, I was waiting for my next blood appointment/checkup in three months, I made the appointment that first week waiting. The dermatology office is a busy place, without a referral you usually can’t get in for a while. I was lucky and was able to be seen in three weeks. I sat in the office, not nervous at all. Honestly it was one of the most enjoyable moments in my life, post blood clot. Being anywhere but the hematology department brought joy to my depressed ego. I went into the office and sat down, a male doctor came through the door after me. He was happy to see me, thinking that I would be an easy exam for him that day. He had me put a gown on, and he started examining my moles. With every spot he looked at, I felt him drawing circles onto my body with a pen. He asked me why I had never had any of these looked at, I told him that skin cancer issues hadn’t really been something in my family that I knew of. He showed me pictures of probably 20 moles on my body. Clusters under my skin, spindles on my skin, discoloration of moles… every-type of textbook mole that would be worrisome could be found on my body. There were so many things wrong with my moles, he didn’t even know where to begin. He told me that he wanted to take an urgent biopsy of some of the worst looking ones on my back, looking like spindle cell melanoma. His thought process with this is that we would look at the meanest, most aggressive looking moles first.

Instant heart drop… Despite all of my episodes with the bone marrow, the endoscopy, the million blood draws… getting a skin biopsy taken was one of the most daunting things to me. The stitches that came after the biopsy were even worse in my head (it especially didn’t help that this doctor asked if one of the nurses, who was new and hadn’t done these kind of stitches before, could do them). I was like “heck yes, anything to help learning” on the outside and “are you trying to flippin kill me” on the inside! This biopsy was scarring, but going home that day having to wait for a couple weeks to find out if I was dying from another cancer was even worse. The doctor wanted me to be mapped as well before the next appointment. Mapped as having someone picture me butt-ass naked so they can see where my moles are.

My luck is so bad, if I bought a cemetery people would stop dying

Two cancers I thought… How could this be happening to me? My body can’t be failing again… How could I move on? I didn’t think I wanted to anymore. This stress was killing me from the inside out. But I remembered who was watching me. My little brothers, and I couldn’t give up on them. I had to live, for my family.

Stay tuned for what comes at that next appointment, as well as my mapping tale. Sorry to do this to you! Peace, love, and all of the above. Love, Alex (your clotted fool)

Thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart for all of your support!

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