I was a couple of months overdue for my once-every-two-years skin check with the dermatologist and had booked one in for this morning.

I figured I may as well take advantage of the appointment and take the entire day off – because I can. I had a bunch of Action Items planned: test painting our bathroom door, mountains of ironing, cleaning the garage, attacking the next step of the dresses-into-skirts project, maybe making a cake.

Imagine my surprise to end up with a 1cm diameter chunk taken from my left upper arm!

Dermatologist is pretty certain it is a basal cell carcinoma. Yipes! I have another appointment in 10 days to get the results and get the stitches removed. Depending on the results I may need a bigger chunk taken out. Then I’ll go onto 6 monthly checks.

Stupid possible cancer. I do count myself very fortunate that it is not the really bad skin cancer. Stupid youth spent at the beach doused in oil.

And I have been advised to take it easy for the rest of the weekend – lest I aggravate the stitches or (ewwww) the giant hole. Best laid plans and all that …

I foresee lots of tooling about on the InformationSuperhighway and reading the space-kindle in my immediate future.

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Here’s a pre-chopping shot of the offending spot. It was a quite tiny thing and a little difficult to see (especially amongst all those freckles). Dermatologist took out quite a bit of the surrounding tissue for biopsying.

It never occurred to me that this sort of thing could be problematic. I’ve always been on the look out for dark or changeable spots.

I accidentally hit invert when I was editing the photo and the evil spot shines sort of greenish and is a little easier to see.

Urgh! the two doses of local anesthetic are now wearing off – owwwwwwwww.

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A friendly reminder to get your skin checked on the regular, kiddies.