Basal Cell Carcinoma

 Forewarning: Depressing Entry.  Feel free to come back later for my regularly scheduled programming and a good old fashioned rant about my MIL.

So the biopsy for the weird brush burn with freckles on my side boob totally came back positive for basal cell carcinoma, which, in case you were unaware, is the most common type of cancer.  Luckily, it spreads like really slowly, if at all, so the way they get rid of it is to just scrape it off.  The medical assistant on the phone yesterday said to me, 'We don't biopsy what we scrape off.'  Which begs the question- how do you know it didn't spread any farther and that you got it all? She was like, 'This type of cancer doesn't spread' or something like that.  I knew I was talking to someone who probably couldn't answer these questions and, oddly, I didn't want to stump her and be a jerk, but, like, I had questions. So I immediately took to Dr. Google to answer my questions.  To be honest, I still don't know why they wouldn't biopsy more "just in case."  Maybe when she took the biopsy she dug down deep enough and there was only cancer in the top layer?  She did mention the word "surface" something.  And I found her description on Google, but I'm not going to go back and look for it because I learned that the "types" of basal cell carcinoma are, like, basically the same.

I immediately was like, 'I should not have gone tanning all those years!'  But a few hours later I realized that, even ass-naked, my side boob has never really been exposed to the sun.  This is in an unusual spot.  If it was on my shoulders, on my stomach, on my nose- I would blame childhood sunburns and the tanning beds.  A large part of me wishes I would have steered clear of tanning beds, but the truth is- I'm so. effing. pale.  Like, when I don't put on some sort of sunless tanner or have some sort of tan, people come up to me and ask me if I'm okay.  I always looked at my black college roommate's skin and thought, 'What would it be like... to not have a pasty white a$$... for there to actually be foundation out there that MATCHES your skin.... to have a zit and not have it look like the world's reddest freaking pimple... to have multiple pimples and to not have it look like a rash...'  You know how the lightest color you can get in foundation is "Ivory"? When I wear ivory and have no tan at all, I actually get a make up line.  So.. I mean, maybe God gave me really pale skin because he wanted me to die of skin cancer.  Or maybe he was like, 'You are too vain.  You will die because you are too vain.  And people will learn not to be so vain- because they will see how vain you were and you died.'  Ugh, it would suck to be that example.  Because, if I'm going to die as an example of vanity, couldn't I be hotter? Like have an awesome rack and perfect - albeit tan- skin and good hair and a nice a$$?  Not small - and now sagging- boobs, sometimes tannish skin with pimples and bad hair and an a$$ with cellulite?  Man.. I don't want to die.  Not yet.  Hopefully they scrape these cells off and I can be done with skin cancer.

This lead me to think of a lot of things last night - until I ultimately caved and took a very small dosage of Xanax to help me fall asleep - in between bouts of watching Pippa Middle*ton's Bio on TV and thinking about dying. 

For starters, it's amazing how separate "you" are from your body.  Your body will betray you and start to produce evil cells that will ultimately be your demise and you have no idea.  You are just merrily living your life until you find out that this body you need to continue living your merry life decided to go bananas on you and can no longer sustain itself on this earth.  Pregnancy felt somewhat this way (but on the opposite end of the spectrum).  They tell you all this crap to do during your pregnancy and while I followed most of the rules, I got the very distinct impression that my body was going to do what it was going to do whether or not I got enough sleep, took my multi-vitamin.  Sometimes I wonder if we make up all these rules for health and follow them to trick ourselves into thinking that we have more control over our life and death than we really do.  I know that when I hear about someone fighting a terminal illness, my first instinct is to differentiate them from myself.  "Well X happened to Joe.  And Joe and I are different for the following reasons and therefore I will not get X."  My second instinct is to not listen to what happened to Joe because it is too upsetting and I know the truth: What Joe got, I could get.  And I could die too.  And we all will anyway. 

This lead me to think of my grandpa who died when I was 6.  I do remember him, but not that much.  But I remember vividly receiving the phone call that he had died- my aunt was crying too hard for me to understand her, so I gave the phone to my mom.  My mom started screaming "No!"  He was only 56 years old- so she was probably around 32.  I asked my mom what was wrong and she said, 'Grandpa died' through her tears.  We had just spent the day before with him.  He died completely out of the blue one Monday on his lunch break from work while eating his sandwich.  My grandma came home later that day and found him on the floor in the living room with his half eaten sandwich on the end table beside him.   Learning this news and watching everyone else learn this news was the fucking saddest moment of my entire life.  My little brother was 4 at the time and had spent the day "playing" in the basement with his friend, Kyle.  They had completely destroyed the basement so my mom sent him down there to clean it up after Kyle left.  I went down and told him the news.  I am happy that I do not remember his reaction. 

Anyway, my grandma just turned 80 this year.  So it's been about 25 years since he died.  She has lived at this point as much life without him as with him.  I wonder how often she thinks of him- and if she ever feels terribly sad at the idea that she can't say to him, 'Can you believe how much X grandchild looks like our son?' or laugh with him about an inside joke they had.  She notes- in a non-depressing way- that she may not have many years left.  I wonder if she is at all excited about seeing him again.  My grandma is religious, so I believe that she believes that they will be able to communicate once more at some point in the future.  I believe in all of those Christian ideas as well, so I also believe that she will be able to talk to him again.  I can't fathom what it would be like- would she be like, 'Oh my god!  Have you been able to see everything? What are your thoughts? Are you upset that I started dating someone else?'  If J started dating someone else after I died, I would greet him in the afterlife with a big punch in the face and then make him swear that he always liked me better.  I know this is immature, but it is the way I feel.

So last night I also thought about that stuff. 

And one last final train of thought that passed through my mind was how lonely it must be to receive a very bad cancer diagnosis.  Please don't think I am thinking that this is what I received, but I had to think about all this stuff because I was just so shocked that any kind of cancer at all could possibly be on or in my body.   I recognize that statistically speaking, I will be fine- they will scrape the cancer cells off and I will live my merry life.  But, I couldn't help but think about my step-father's mom.  She died of that cancer that you get from asbestos- mesothelioma (sp? I'm too lazy to Google this).  I don't know if they didn't have good health insurance or if all deaths are this way, but it was a very messy and terrible end and my step-dad and his sister were having to change her diapers and she was having diarrhea, etc.. I wonder what her thoughts were- was she just clinging to hope the entire time? Was she wondering where she was going? Did the doctor prescribe her enough morphine so she plain old just didn't have to think about this stuff? Because that would be my preference, frankly.

Alright, well, I'm going to let you go.  Hopefully you took heed of my warning at the beginning of this entry and moved on to funnier blogs.  But, anyway, please don't take away from this that I am geeking out over my basal cell carcinoma.  Last night I was super emo about it, but today I'm done freaking out.  It just got me thinking about a bunch of crap I hope I don't have to think about for another 20 years. 

On another note, I'm very much looking forward to the results of Justin Bieber's paternity test and hoping and praying that the baby is his.  Not because I care, but because it would make for interesting news for me to read at 330 am on my iphone while feeding the baby.